


Effloresce

by Flowerflamestars



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOMAF AU, Archeron merchant family legacy, Archeron sisters who knew about the War before Feyre told them, F/M, Fix-it fic, Found Family, Gen, Lucien Spring Court Traitor Vanserra, Lucien actually gets the story he deserves, M/M, Nesta and Elain: the Most Competent, Older Archeron Sisters & Lucien centric, Who runs the world? Nesta and Elain, a very different take on the Hybernian war, fake engagment, ride or die means you can't fucking die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29074554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerflamestars/pseuds/Flowerflamestars
Summary: So bleeding and burning, lost and found, Lucien Vanserra staggered into human lands, and found he wanted to live.
Relationships: Elain Archeron & Lucien Vanserra, Elain Archeron & Nesta Archeron, Elain Archeron/Lucien Vanserra, Nesta Archeron & Lucien Vanserra, Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 47
Kudos: 81





	1. Shovels and Roses

Lucien couldn’t stop walking.  
  
It was a gods damned stupid thing to do, but he kept walking, shaking off the shudder of repulsive magic as he passed under the wall and into mortal land. It was earlier spring here than the artificial season in Tamlin’s home, if Lucien closed his eyes and breathed in the crisp air, he could almost expect to open them and see endless trees with leaves like jewels.  
  
He didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t want to go anywhere else either.  
  
So many things had felt hollow since the endless years after Jesmindas death. But that this- this victory, this time for rebuilding felt that way, was an ache he couldn’t shake. Mother help him with her healing hands; for Lucien, having Amarantha to hate, having Tamlin’s curse to break, had given him purpose.  
  
And now? What was there? Tam looking for enemies all over again, Feyre’s fake smile like knife to the gut, the Spring Court full again with vipers. A healing land, but every bit had rot hiding in the shadows.  
  
He wondered if the humans would kill him if they found him. String him up on an oak, red ties for binding, ash to take his immortal heart. The sentries knew better than the follow him, they’d only report his absence the next day. Tam would think he was hunting, probably. But Feyre- his first friend in a century, who he had no idea how to be a companion to, she would notice.  
  
Out from under the old trees, larger than he’d imagine they usually grew here, fed with the ambient magic of the wall bleeding out, there were flowers. Grass and blossoms, manicured fruit trees just starting to awaken for the year. They were apple trees, tall and proud, like a blow to the heart.  
  
Like an idiot, he followed them, the neat rows curving as they crested down a hill, until there before him was a human estate, green roofs bright under the clear sky.  
  
Someone had planted a riot of wildflowers along the path, mixed and sprinkled them together so that they grew as a beautiful tangle. It was so unlike the tamed, static plants of Spring, so much more like his beautiful and vicious home.  
  
Down Lucien went, resigned to follow his legs, to see this garden planted by passionate and unbridled hands.  
  
The first thing he saw was the foxglove- every color from blackest purple to pale blousey parchment, grown tall and crowning beds from the middle. It was healthy and happy, the poison of it stinging at his nose. Peonies like sugar, just starting to loose into shape, tangled with lavender just barely awake. And roses- unmanicured at all, climbing and crossing one another somehow both the wild delicate blooms and their larger sturdier cousins.  
  
Lucien traced a single, bloody blossom, thinking of how they used to float in the tea of his mothers sitting room.  
  
“Oh, don’t touch that!” A female voice roused him, sweet as summer rain. “It’s just about to open- _Oh_.”  
  
He’d turned to her voice, and she’d frozen, dark eyes so wide they were swallowing her face. The human girl, young woman, he thought, rocked back a step, hands white knuckled on a shovel nearly as tall as she was.  
  
Lucien realized what he must look like to her. Dressed for the hunt bristling with knives, a bow at his back. The metal eye and terrible scars, even the his long hair, minuscule braids pulling it back from his pointed ears. To this beautiful girl, Lucien was a nightmare.  
  
Easily, he snapped on a courtiers smile. “Hello,” he breathed, pitching his voice soft.  
  
Lucien bowed, the last thing he noticed were her silken blue shoes, uselessly lovely for a garden. He was thinking about the delicate color, that this girl must be a noble, before he was hit hard on the side of the head and the world went dark.  
  


***

The girl had hit him with her shovel.  
  
Lucien groaned low in his throat, opening his eyes to sky and roses. He couldn’t have been out long, he could smell the girl nearby, her nerves tinging the air. She smelled like honeysuckle and oak leaves, like roaring campfires, like the warmth of the sun- and fear.  
  
He sat up and there she was, just out of arms reach, clutching that shovel in front of her body like a ward.  
  
“Look,” she started, voice high and fast, “I apologize for the impulse, my lord. My sister was taken by faeries. My name is Elain, and I’ll go with you wherever you want, as long as you promise that only I’ll be punished, that the staff and the estate will be left alone.”  
  
“Take you?” Lucien echoed. Maybe he was concussed. A faery warrior and diplomat centuries old, brought down by a human girls gardening implements.  
  
But there was something about her face, something that kept snagging his attention. Freckles and lovely creamy skin, flushed with both fear and temper he could smell. Big brown eyes, shot with gold, a full mouth and- and her mouth. Those were Feyre’s lips, her chin too.  
  
Cauldron boil him and mother take him.  
  
“You are Elain Archeron?” He didn’t want to give her time to be afraid, didn’t want to scare her anymore. Not just because Feyre would kick his ass if she found out, but because- because it felt wrong, that this beautiful girl should ever have anything to fear from him. “My name is Lucien, I live in the Spring Court with your sister Feyre.”  
  
He’d expected smiles, hoped for them. Not for the pink flush to take over her skin entirely, for her face to crumple into tears. “Feyre?” Elain breathed, the shovel clanging to ground. “Feyre is _alive_?”  
  
“Alive and safe and happy,” Lucien assured too fast. Instead of replying Elain let out a sob, and buried her face in her hands.  
  
Could he not speak to mortals at all? Did the beautiful girl, did Elain hate faeries that much?  
  
Carefully, Lucien slid to his feet, moving slow in case she looked up. More carefully still, he reached out to bump her arm, handkerchief an offering in his hand. She took it, chocolate eyes roaming his face and shakily wiped at her tears.  
  
“Perhaps,” Lucien began, painfully aware of how tall he was, how quick and strong towering over her, “you could write Feyre a letter? I’ll carry it back with my own hands.”  
  
Elain squared her delicate shoulders and pushed back her curling hair, gracefully pulling together her tearstained face. “Yes,” she said, the girl who’d hit him with a shovel disappearing into genteel tones. “Tea, I think? With this chill in the air. I can write while you refresh yourself.”  
  
Lucien found himself blinking at the transition. Had he ever sat and had tea time, in his entire adult life?  
  
Elain was still speaking, “I have a solarium this way,” She pointed toward the southeast end of the estate, down a path lined with herb gardens just starting to sprout. “The maids don’t even come in, so no one will see you there. Miss Hilfridge, our cook, has been baking these darling little cakes with dried flowers from last summer, you’ll love them.”  
  
And so Lucien followed Elain, her bright speech filing the air, a less than pleasant contrast to his pounding head.  
  
The solarium was as elegant as anything that existed in Spring, potted orchids and palms and citrus trees filling the space with the smell of earth and life. Elain directed him to a silk covered chaise, every bit the consummate hostess as she ensured he was comfortable there and took his weapons. Took his weapons and left the room, still chattering brightly.  
  
Mother damn him, she’d plucked the wicked knife from his boot with a tinkling laugh. He’d been too distracted by the sound- like joy condensed, the emerald brooks of home- to even object.  
  
When she bustled back, a laden tea tray in her hands, she’d changed into a deeply burgundy gown, the painfully charming sunhat removed to reveal barely tamed deep blond curls. She was all pale gold, flushing again as he jumped to his feet and took the tray from her, unable to watch her try to carry the burden.  
  
Was she blushing? Lucien shouldn’t care a whit if she were, this young, delicate woman. She perched across from him and poured, her hands steady as passed him a rosebud cup, a bone china plate piled with miniature scones.  
  
“I’ll write while you eat?” Elain asked, smiling at him. This one, Lucien thought, so much more than Feyre, would have been a lethal courtier. He inclined his head in return, smiling his Spring Court smile.  
  
Elain was the very picture of feminine grace as she wrote, filling pages with looping elegant penmanship, teacup delicate in her other hand. She was beautiful hitting him on the head with a shovel, now, she was confounding.  
  
She sipped and looked up, smiling to him sweetly, politely. Lucien had always been told human food was ash in immortal mouths, the truth wasn’t far from it. The scones were odd, tasteless, the berries inside them had a strange firm crunch that was honestly unpleasant. The tea, at least, tasted like tea, if tea had been brewed from hard water, a strange tinge of earth and metal to it.  
  
Fae senses were nothing like human, he reminded himself, continuing to eat and sip mechanically, politely. He’d been trying to focus instead on the bright smell of the blooming citrus trees, so intent on that and not offending Elain further that it took him until the dregs of his teacup to notice.

The laugh that burst from his chest was too big for the quiet room, foreign to his ears. When was the last time he’d really laughed? “Are there iron filings in my tea?” Lucien choked out, trying not to guffaw.  
  
Elain’s smile had gone clever, and very real. If not for the pulse of fear behind it, he’d thought she liked that he’d noticed her ploy. “Only to make sure you don’t decide to go after the staff.”  
  
He set down the cup and picked up a scone, examining the bursts of red fruit baked inside with careful eyes. “And rowan berries in the scones?” Clever girl.  
  
Clever, beautiful girl- whose knowledge was woefully wrong.  
  
How had she survived this long? This close to the wall, and only fairytales to guard her against the very real monsters his people could be. Lucien could not allow that to go on.  
  
“Elain,” he began, fighting to keep the delighted laughter far from his voice. “Iron doesn’t weaken faeries.” She gone still at his tone, was watching him with those careful, sweet eyes. Was Feyre’s entire family this stupidly, wonderfully brave? “Not salt in your pockets or blessed metal, not hawthorn or rowan or oak, not red thread and not hiding your face.”  
  
Curls were sliding down her neck as she tilted her head, thinking. “What does work?” Elain asked, voice quiet.  
  
“Only ash wood,” Lucien promised. “Carve it into weapons, or burn it and use the ash. Even the smoke will work somewhat.”  
  
She was looking past him, out the glass wall, to her field of a garden. Out into the trees beyond, like she could see the wall itself, that poor safeguard.  
  
“Elain,” he started again, how did he comfort her? This beautiful, brave girl. Who’d hit him over the head and tried to poison him, who’d offered herself up to keep her servants and their families safe. Slowly, so that she could pull away, so that he wouldn’t startle her, Lucien reached for her hand. “Promise me, if any other faeries come here, you use ash or run. You run to the wall, you get through to Spring. Feyre and I will keep you safe, no matter what.”  
  
Elain blinked, and then again, dark eyes wide enough to swallow worlds. Her hand in his was as fragile as glass, even the callouses soft, her pulse under his fingers like a sparrow.  
  
“Okay.” Elain said, finally looking back at him. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll come to Feyre.” Lucien wasn’t hurt to be left out of the offer, but it twanged the yawning emptiness that lived in his chest.  
  
Elain was staring at his tan skin against hers, a wrinkle forming between her brows. Had he broken some mortal convention he didn’t know? Feyre touched people- faeries- all the time, but then again, she also didn’t give a damn about rules.  
  
Carefully, like she didn’t understand what he might do, Elain squeezed his hand and let go. In quick assured movements she folded the letter into a neat square, binding it with bright ribbon. She stood, those soft skirts that begged to be touched flowing around her. The letter was clutched in both her hands, like treasure. “You’ll take it to her?”  
  
“No one else will touch it,” Lucien assured. Elain smiled again, that real one, her cheeks dimpling.  
  
Silently, he followed her back out into the sunshine. Lucien couldn’t think of a single thing to say as she fearlessly walked right along side him, her hair a riot in the light, her skin nearly faery fine. She smelled like warmth itself, and sounded like to too, her wordless happy sigh as she stoked a hand down the plants they passed.  
  
Even with Lucien slowing his long gait as much as possible to meet hers, they reached the edge of the estate, the last of the apples trees too quickly.  
  
Elain paused to look up him, dark eyes a serious that he wanted to know more about. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, “please tell Feyre we’re all doing well, that if she can ever get away, we’re here.”  
  
Lucien wondered if that love would still extend if Elain knew her sister was no longer human. Like an arrow to the heart, he was sure it would. The girl who had been brave enough to attack him in her garden had a fierce and unyielding spirit.  
  
“It’s nothing,” he said, bowing once more to her. He made it three steps away, just into the thick forest shade before she stopped him.  
  
“Lucien,” Elain called, her voice a caress on the syllables. She waited for him to turn, still smiling that dimpled, intriguing smile. “You’re welcome to come to tea again.”  
  
Elain didn’t wait for an answer but curtsied and turned away, her skirt tangling in soft grass as she headed for home. Lucien watched her go, frozen. He was watching to make sure she made it, to make sure she was safe, he told himself.  
  
But that bright, very real smile stayed with him. An ember in the dark, tucked away under his ribs. When he breathed, he smelled honeysuckle and thought of her audacity to try to poison him. Elain Archeron.  
  
It wasn’t until he was nearly home, crossing to the estate grounds, that he realized she’d never returned his weapons.


	2. Petals and Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elain takes a chance.

His hair was the color of old blood when wet- she couldn’t look away from the muted vibrancy, the water he didn’t even seem to notice racing down his bright skin. In the daytime dark of the storm, his remaining eye gleamed like a predators, the lack of light destroying any pleasantry that might mute how otherworldly he was.  
  
To Elain’s eyes, Lucien was a creature of the forest. The beautiful clothes, the fine knives, the articulate speech- seeing him like this made it very clear those were things he would take on and off, as easily as she might change dresses.  
 _  
Not human, not human,_ her rapid pulse seemed to be saying. Soaked to the bone, she could see every defined muscle, even the faint shine of immortal skin, through the wreckage of his fine lawn shirt. _Beautiful,_ her brain answered her heart, more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen.  
  
“Elain,” Lucien said again, his voice rougher than she’d ever heard. “Tell me you’re alright.”  
  
Of course she was alright- was her blush so hard he thought she were ill? That would be just her luck, to go along with her inability to speak properly at the sight of him. Before Elain could open her mouth, before she could even try to speak, he’d gripped her shoulders.  
  
Not hard, so gentle, the way Elain touched flower blossoms. She was frozen, entranced as he traced her arms, his soaked sleeves leaving trails of water on her skin. Finally, he came to her hands and flipped them, palm up, searching.  
  
She wondered if his golden eye was magic, if that was the force that held her pinned in place. Or if it was simply the electricity of his skin on hers, the spark she’d never felt before.  
  
“You’ve okay,” He breathed, like a prayer.  
  
That, finally, broke her spell. “Of course I am,” she said, making her voice bright. “But you’re not, you must be frozen.” He didn’t respond at all when she pulled on his hands, tried to bring him deeper into the room. Lucien was as otherworldly still as he’d been the day she found him in her garden, still in that way human bodies weren’t strong enough to become.  
  
“You’re okay.” He repeated, at normal volume now, voice still rough. “But you used the acorn.”  
  
The tiny golden perfect acorn, always warm to the touch. Magic, Elain, assumed. She’d found it tucked in her garden with a note the day after she’d seen him last. Careful instructions in what she had to assume was his own hand, telling her that is she ever needed him, all she needed to do was twist the top three times and speak his name.  
  
She’d hidden it away among her ribbons for a full month before giving into the curiosity to use it, giving into the pull of wanting to see him again. The magic had tingled her hand, made the air smell strange and smoky. Elain had no idea if it had actually worked, until he’d strode in from the storm.  
  
She fought the urge to squirm under his gaze, instead fixing her eyes on the growing puddle his long hair was leaving on her floor.  
  
“I wanted to continue our acquaintance,” Elain said, feeling more human and more ridiculous by the moment, “I’m alone here again, it seemed like a good time to invite you to tea.”  
  
Finally she met his eyes, both gold and russet were steady on her, unblinking. The attention should have been terrifying, but it only made her curious. What could he see that she couldn’t? Why did he use to magic to call over distances but not to keep dry?  
  
Lucien began to smile, stillness slowly melting away. “You wanted to see me?” He inclined his head, long hair falling forward, “then I am at your service, my lady.”  
  
All at once he seemed to notice he was still holding her hands, that the courteous motion had sent more rainwater over them both from his sodden hair. He was gentle with her hands, but the motion of him snapping back was too fast for her eyes to follow. “Apologies,” Lucien began, “I wasn’t paying attention to the storm.”  
  
What had he been paying attention to then? He was soaked through, his skin icy to the touch.  
  
“I’ll get you a towel,” Elain replied, brushing away his apology. She smoothed her skirt, righted her posture. “And a shirt, maybe?” The step back he’d taken helped her not at all, giving her a more complete view of the fine cloth stuck to his skin with water. Elain could see the hair on his stomach, the defined divots of his abdominal muscles that made her throat go dry. “Be right back!” She sang, fluttering her way to the door.  
  
Elain had grown up seeing the men coming in from the fields in summer. Their skin tanned deep, muscles built from hard work shining with sweat. She could remember seeing the young dandies and noble sons learning to fight, strong in their finery. She understood perfectly well attraction, how easy it was to bury in manners and sweet charm, so that no one noticed if she looked too long.  
  
It was like comparing a campfire to the sun.  
  
She bustled off to find a towel, thankful she’d thought to dismiss the maids before she’d tried the acorn. Gifted them paid time off, sent them merrily on their way on the off chance that the magic would have visible effects.  
  
So there was no one to charm, no one to ask question as she slipped into the scullery and plucked up a clean shirt belonging to a house guard. It was cotton, nothing so lovely as the lawn fabric sticking to Lucien’s skin at this exact moment, but she couldn’t think of anything else that would fit him. As it was,  
Elain suspected the breadth of his shoulders would be a challenge.  
  
Necessities clutched in her hands, she gave herself a moment to lean against the wall and breathe.  
  
Beauty was a faery weapon, she’d always been told that. To ensnare and entrance, to spell human victims happily into their doom. But she’d also always been told faeries couldn’t touch pure gold, or iron. That the wall really kept them out. If none of the stories were true, what was she supposed to do with how beautiful Lucien was? How his savage loveliness stalking in from the storm like a nightmare hadn’t lit her pulse with fear, but with longing?  
  
No, Elain thought. _No_. She squared her shoulders. She was going to give him a fresh shirt and go make that spicy, dark hot chocolate Nesta had bought her. She’d serve it in blossom china cups, some brightness on the stormy day. Croissants for refreshment, spring water to cut the sweetness.  
  
She’d find out more about her sister’s life over the wall, if she’d found her love after all. She’d learn more about magic if she could get Lucien to tell her. A friend- she could cultivate a faery friend. A source of knowledge, a tangible, precious connection to Feyre, and strangely good company.  
  
It would be perfectly fine.

***

  
Lucien needed to take a damn breath.  
  
Why had he panicked? He’d been alone when the summons reached him, for once having a quiet moment where he didn’t need to mollify Tamlin or hide from Inathe. Elain’s voice had echoed in his head like a bell, the call scaring him down to his bones. He’d assumed she was in trouble, armed himself and winnowed straight to the Wall without another thought.  
  
He couldn’t really feel the cold, the frozen day and vicious storm once he crossed out of the artificial bubble of Spring Court magic. It had only deepened his panic, his rage. That someone had come for Elain on a day like this- humans couldn’t even be out in weather like this for long. He couldn’t stop seeing it- her cold, afraid, bloody.  
  
If they were Fae, he was going to remind them why he’d been thought to be a contender for his father’s throne, even long after his banishment. If they were human, he was going to take them deep into the forest, far from Elain’s beautiful eyes, and feed them to the monsters on the other side of the Wall.  
  
The magic in his veins was burning hotter than it had in decades, heat so close to the surface half a thought would have turned the rain on his skin to steam, to mist.  
  
This beautiful, confounding, human girl- she’d spoken his name and relit the fire he’d nearly forgotten, hadn’t burned and set free in longer than he could remember.  
  
And then- and then she’d been fine. Perfectly okay, brown eyes wide with confusion, still as terror beneath his hands. He’d scared her, that much was obvious. Brave as she was, Elain hadn’t shied from his touch, from his words, but she’d been unable to look at him for much of their conversation.  
  
Lucien had never been more aware of how different faery reactions might be. In the land of his youth, in his viper filled current home, a knife in one hand and magic wreathing the other was tame, understandable. To Elain, he might as well have been the face of a horror story, a monster coming in from the rain.  
  
When Elain returned, that startled flush was still on her cheeks, but her eyes were bright and clear. She took his sodden coat from his hands without any reaction, turning from him to reach over her head, to hang it on a metal hook clearly intended for a flower pot. It dripped steadily down onto a basin of potted flowers.  
  
With a polite smile, lacking the dimples he saw when he was trying to sleep, Elain passed him a thick towel and a soft shirt. She inclined her head to the door, “I’ll give you a moment.”  
  
Before he could summon a reply she was gone again, the only sound the rain on the glass walls. Cauldron boil him, had he scared her that badly? He’d been forging deals and playing courtier to immortals for longer than she’d been alive, surely he could figure out how to talk to her? To speak to this one beautiful, brilliant girl. Who’d wanted to see him, for no reason but his company, after all.  
  
Surely he could make this right.  
  
Thinking hard about what he knew of her, Lucien dried and braided away his hair. Remembering her shiver as she’d opened the door he sent just a whisper of his magic into the air, warming the room until the plants smelled like joy again, until it was a temperature he thought would make her comfortable.  
  
He was wringing out his shirt over a potted palm when the door opened. Her merry mask and quick dancing steps stopped dead when she saw him, the motion so abrupt china cups on the tray she carried slid, threatening to fall. Like an idiot, like a youth with no control, Lucien flashed to right in front of her, catching a teacup in each nimble hand.  
  
He’d moved faster than mortal eyes could track, had to bite down a vicious curse at her horrified eyes, her scarlet face.  
  
So close to her, Elain breathing hard, her heart racing, the air was filled with the scent of honeysuckle. Embers and crisp sweet flowers. She smelled like- she smelled like _longing,_ like warm darkness to fall into.  
  
But she was blinking those wide eyes at him, confused. Lucien realized he’d been stopped in front of her for minutes, uncounted heartbeats, breathing in the smell of her skin.  
  
Gods and hells and immortal honey, what was _wrong_ with him?  
  
Carefully, slowly, to keep from startling her all over again, Lucien placed the cups back on her tray. He fought the urge to clear his throat in the growing silence, instead striding away at careful mortal speed to pull on the shirt she’d given him, to get some damned control over himself.  
  
When he turned again, courtiers smile on his face, Elain had set down the tray and arranged the low table they’d sat at before. Primly, she waited for him to sit to pour, the only sound rain pounding down.  
  
Lucien wanted to close his eyes as the steam drifted to him. Warm cinnamon, the bite of something spicy, and chocolate-deep and rich as love. He’d not had hot chocolate since he’d left Autumn. In the Winter court is was too rich, too filled with vanilla and cream. But this, Lucien was sure, would taste like pure warmth on his tongue.  
  
He became very focused on the pink flower motif of the cups. Was there no part of Elain Acheron that didn’t disarm him?  
  
She was the one to break the awkwardness. “Do the markings on your back mean something?” Her tone was light, bright as charm. “Tattoo’s are very rare on this side of the Wall.”  
  
It was an idle question, he was very sure. Bramble and hawthorne, rowan and oak. Lucien had carried their leaves stark on his skin for so long he sometimes forgot they were there, his home in ink. From behind, he might still be a son of the forest, wild as the hunt. It was only when he saw his own face that the toll the world had took became clear; the monstrous scars, the magic eye, the false smile.  
  
Honesty, Lucien realized. With this one mortal girl, who was so stupidly brave, unflinching even when she feared him, he could be honest. Elain had sought him out, after all. He’d try hard to charm her, to make her feel comfortable, but what did he gain from lying?  
  
It was all he did in Spring, in his work and life. She’d been audacious enough to try to poison him, perhaps he could learn from her boldness. “I wasn’t born in Spring,” he told her, meeting curious brown eyes. “I am,” The words didn’t want to come out, “I am the son of the Lady of Autumn. I can’t return home, but those are the plants we hold sacred. From the stories of my childhood.”  
  
“They’re very beautiful,” Elain said, riotous curls snagging on the embroidery of her gown as she shivered, the motion involuntary.  
  
“You’re still cold,” Lucien murmured. Slowly, unwilling to make another mistake in front of her, he raised the temperature of the room.  
  
“No, I’m perfectly”- her polite protest cut off as she felt the spring warm air. “Are you doing that?”  
  
Lucien merely inclined his head. _There_ , she didn’t sound afraid.  
  
Elain set down her cup with a gentle clink and drew up her legs, tucking them to the side, under her skirt. She was looking at the empty air, hand drawn to her full lips like wonder. When she turned her eyes back to him, it finally the face of the girl who’d hit him with a shovel. “Does all magic smell like fire? The acorn did too, when I called to you.”  
  
Lucien almost choked on the chocolate he was finally letting himself drink, cinnamon smothering him. “No,” he replied, too quickly. _How_ could she smell that? Surely human senses weren’t all that sharp? “You’re smelling me, I suppose.” Lucien tried to keep his voice detached, but he was certainly throwing her mortal conventions all to hell again. Gods. “Much of my magic is fire, you’re probably just sensing that I made it.”  
  
“You made the acorn?” Elain asked, tone something he couldn’t read, eyes thoughtful.  
  
He nodded, looking past her to a lemon tree, letting the smell anchor him. No lie would pass his lips with this girl. It felt wrong, impossible. “I had to learn to work metal,” he gestured to his face, mouth twisting ruefully, “to keep the eye working right.”  
  
“Do you know,” she replied, “that human stories say faeries can’t touch gold? Any pure metals?”  
  
Luciens laugh surprised him, wrung from his chest. She smiled in return, heart-stoppingly beautiful. He was so glad to not have her pity, to not sense a bit of sadness in the air.  
  
It was odd, to look at her and see the features she shared with Feyre so clearly. But they were so different- both brave to a fault, but when Lucien looked at Elain he felt nothing of Feyre, glimpsed nothing of the singularly gentle sister she’d portrayed.  
  
Were Elain fae, Lucien was sure she’d have been brilliant opponent. With centuries, that charm and curiosity would only grow more lethal. It twisted his long dead heart.But he smiled instead. “High fae love finery more than you can imagine.”  
  
Shockingly, her smile grew even brighter, cheeks dimpling. “I can perhaps imagine.” Elain tilted her head to the right, indicating a sturdy cabinet he’d have imagined was full of gardening tools. “Your weapons are in there.”  
  
Her laughing tone made him feel awkward, the ache of it more foreign than the sound of her slow human heartbeat. Lucien didn’t know what to do with his hands now that his cup was empty, found himself smoothing back his hair. He was too tall for her silk divan, legs trapped up against the delicate wrought iron table. “The Spring Court values ornamentation,” he told her, voice stiff to his own ears.  
  
Like crackling embers, like roses opening, Elain laughed.  
  
The sound was relief enough that he rose, strode to open the cabinet she’d indicated. There it all was- his gold bracketed bow, his horn quiver, the veritable pile of jeweled daggers she’d wrapped in soft cloth. It _was_ ridiculous, but carrying his allegiance openly had been important in the last century.  
  
Frippery, the truest part of his mind answered. But he strapped on the bow, the quiver. Slid the long knives into his boots. But it was on the smallest daggers that Lucien paused.  
  
He was already armed to the teeth, had come to Elain’s call with his own practical steel and fire as defense. The daggers were beautiful- carved emerald leaves climbing the hilts, cross guards the shape of rosebuds. Despite the decoration, they were well made, light by any standard.  
  
Lucien turned back to Elain. She was watching him, eyes dark and steady. Too tall, too large for this room, looming over her, Lucien knelt at her side. Even on the ground he found their eyes were nearly level.  
  
“Perhaps,” he began, holding out the smallest of knives piled in his hands, “You might keep these yourself.” Let this brave girl have even the smallest protection, let him actually be useful to her in some real way. The fear of earlier in the day rose in him all at once, the horror of her meeting faery violence.  
  
With a single pale, freckled hand, Elain traced an emerald leaf and met his eyes head on. “How do I hold one?” Her voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the rain.

***

  
 _Fire magic,_ Elain was thinking. Did that mean all faeries looked like that? Like whatever element they wielded lived under their skin?  
  
He’d caught her staring again, but he didn’t seem offended in the least. Who knew what faery manners were anyway? She felt a little giddy with it, the calm she’d forced on herself evaporated from the instant she’d walked in and found him half dressed.  
  
Did her sisters Spring lord have eyes that bloomed? Lucien’s _burned_.  
  
It was a mad thought, made madder still when he knelt beside her. Her faery friend, Elain reminded herself. For Feyre, for her own curiosity. Even for Lucien himself, maybe, for the protection he seemed to want to offer her.  
  
“Perhaps,” he said, voice deep and smooth, “You might keep these yourself.”  
  
There were endless stories about the fell things that happened to humans who accepted faeries gifts. Who’d let themselves become trapped, lost years or souls because of the temptation of faery food, faery riches. Faeries torment, she’d been told, they give you what you want only to take it away and demand twice as much from you. Faery bargains were binding and deadly.  
  
But deep down, somehow, Elain was completely sure Lucien offered her no harm.

“How do I hold one?” She asked, touching the shocking gemstones, real and perfect. She’d hustled them to the cabinets out here at dawn one day, wrapped them in cloth to stop looking at the incredible finery of them.  
  
The curiosity had tangled inside her. Humans got emeralds from a far northern continent, they were worth more to a merchant than their weight in gold, in diamonds. Were faeries simply richer with their centuries to accumulate whatever they prized, or was trade completely different over the Wall?  
  
“Here,” Lucien said, carelessly dumping the pile of daggers beside her chair before plucking up one of the smallest. He held it out to her, balanced across his palm. Gentle, he rearranged her grip on the pommel, pressed her fingers to the steel, warm from his skin.  
  
Elain made an abbreviated slashing motion that brought a crack of laughter from Lucien’s mouth. “Perfect,” he said, approvingly. “Keep your wrist steady and you’ll do a lot more damage than with a shovel.”  
  
Were all faeries this _charming_?  
  
“You mean I shouldn’t just invite them to tea and feed the them the burnt remains of ash trees?” She’d said it before she could stop herself, discourteous and sharp. Elain could feel herself blushing again.  
  
“I’m sure they’d take anything you gave them,” Lucien said, eyes serious as his voice danced. “But stabbing and running might be more practical. You have the element of surprise.”  
  
It was impossible not to smile at that. Elain straightened back up, squared her posture back to formality. But whatever she’d been about to grasp for, to say, was stopped by Lucien wrapping his hand over hers again.

Not to correct her grip, but holding on, soft and warm. “I would be honored if you kept them near you,” he said, voice a more serious thing.  
  
Helplessly, she nodded back, his skin deeper than gold next to hers.  
  
Lucien inclined his head in return, elegant as any lord. He rose, taller than any man she knew, and plucked the coat she’d hung from the wall. While she watched, it grew dry under his hands, fabric lightening.  
  
He bowed to her silkily. “Thank you again for your hospitality, Elain Archeron.” Lucien’s smile was sharp as he straightened. “The acorn will work again, whenever you have need.”  
  
And then he was simply gone, magic making her blink, making her heart race. Elain jumped to her feet, but the room was empty, truly. It took her a long time to realize that whatever he’d done to the temperature for her remained, the room warm.  
  
Longer still, the fire lingered, thick in the air of her favorite haven.


	3. Oak and Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Above and below the Wall, our heroes begin to break.

If there was one thing Lucien Vanserra learned young, it was to control himself.  
  
But control in the world of Autumn had always been more than half deception- and Lucien was lying more and more each day. That he really was a Spring Lord in all but birth. That Feyre was fine and Tamlin was just. That the rot that had began under Amarantha was being cleansed, not grown right into the soul of a stagnant season.  
  
Burning inside him every day, it became harder.  
  
Without fail, he woke with magic kindling in his veins, sweating out his pores in raging heat. It made no sense to him. Elain was _human_. He could practically hear the mortal beat of her heart if he focused hard, soft as spring rain falling over Tamlins estate.  
  
But still, Lucien dreamt.  
  
Of Elain dancing, spinning through the figures of Autumn Court dances. The Hunters Moon high in sky, his beautiful savage home a safe place- Elain Archeron wild with joy and framed by bonfires, all dimples and clever eyes. Maddeningly impossible, with faery bright skin. Her curls unbound and soft to the touch- _his touch_.  
  
There was no world in which those forests might call Lucien home, no story where he would ever be crowned again in rowan and bone, no life where it wasn’t a land ruled by a murderous tyrant.  
  
Lucien spent long night hours staring at the sky, slowing his heart, the fire in his blood, the longing trying to burn him up inside. In some ways, he decided, it was even worse than the death wish he’d carried in the time of Amarantha. Something inside him was waking up, the embers stoked for the first time in centuries.  
  
Something a human girl who wanted only to be his friend had brought to life.  
  
It was as though he’d been half awake for _decades._ Now his eyes were open, and Lucien couldn’t stop looking. If he’d been asleep, his power had been half dead. It would have been easy to write off on the long imprisonment of Prythian, but deep down he knew that wasn’t true.  
  
No fox worth a forest den lied to himself too.  
  
Lucien thought perhaps he hadn’t felt even a spark of it’s full strength since the day Jesminda had burned. Hadn’t wanted it- not really, not to live or to feel- and that truest, most intrinsic part had listened.  
  
Until he’d stumbled into a rose garden. Winnowed straight over the Wall armed to the teeth.  
  
And every day he rose, the ostentatious costume of a spring noble never more false. It reminded him so _much_ a of her laugh; this girl who he’d known less than a heartbeat, seeing the truth that easily. If his tiredness showed, Tam didn’t comment. Maybe he didn’t notice, too busy celebrating a victory even Lucien was tired of lauding. Too busy seeking ways to kill Rhysand, for all that his fell bargaining had likely saved them all.  
  
It took bitter, constant focus not to melt the gold all around him.  
  
Lucien understood saving face, but he knew sacrifice much more. Hated that he understood the pallor that dulled even Feyre’s glowing immortal skin.  
  
He hated it- hated as he went through every motion, thoughts buried deep. His duties filled his day, but they meant nothing. Emptiness, Lucien learned, only brought the flames higher. He was helpless, had been for a long time, he was realizing. Facing that he hated this fetid court.  
  
That Lucien had no home to return to, couldn’t fathom a place in this damned whole land he could safely call his own, with his mother’s fire so bright gold spiked and burned in his gaze.  
  
With Elain Archeron’s smoke and dew flower scent living in his lungs like a haunting.  
  
So Lucien did what he was best at, and didn’t return. No matter that the Wall buzzed like a beacon in the back of his mind every day he spent in too bright, too frozen forests, he didn’t turn toward human lands. Refusing the siren song of his name on the wind, no matter how it hurt. Instead, Lucien winnowed to the furthest of the rebuilding villages and built until he was made to leave.  
  
To return to stand at Tamlin’s side- more and more, to stand and _not_ speak.  
  
He knew how to run, how to fight, turning those gifts inward was nothing at all.  
  
Nothing at all, until the High Lord of Night rescued Feyre from her own wedding, and Lucien was relieved.

***

  
Elain would never be so rude as to hide from her own guests.  
  
She was naturally- as she’d explained to the simpering lord who’d escorted her outside- simply overwhelmed by the heat of the ball room, and could he be so kind as to escort her and oh, perhaps fetch some lemonade she’d forgotten inside?  
  
Alone, Elain sank down on the balcony, this years frothy skirts poofing against the cold stone.  
  
They had standing in the community again- riches and place, prospects and respect. Nesta, unable to hide how much she hated the false cheer, had retreated hours ago. But Elain had smiled- danced on and on, familiar burn beneath her ribs writhing.  
  
She wanted- she wanted out of this gods damned corset, wanted to throw every idiot vying for her hand, for her wealth, out of the house. To know her baby sister was safe, to know her older sister would be okay.  
  
The music, audible from the ballroom, shifted into a faster reel, and Elain pressed her face into her hands.  
  
Unbidden- and she would blame the frustration later- the thought of dark ink on golden skin came to her. Careful lines to make a tangle of plants, true and perfect. At this point, Elain could have traced the shapes in her sleep.  
  
She wanted Lucien to come back.  
  
Which was _madness_. But she’d thought- hoped, _assumed_ \- that they were something like friends. The specter of that fascination twisted hotly in her chest, but here, alone, she let it come. Lucien was her beautiful, impossible faery friend.  
  
Who’d never again answered her summons.  
  
Elain knew it was what she should have expected. Could even, perhaps, be so simple as a difference of species. What were a few long months to a man- _creature -_ who’d live forever? A solid piece of her young life, but to Lucien? An eye blink, an afternoon.  
  
But just as truly she couldn’t shake the image of him striding in from the storm, wild and burning. He’d come for _her_ , to make sure Elain was alright. Savage and protective, but he’d taken her offer to stay and drunk hot chocolate out of dainty china cups like it was a wonder.  
  
The soft slide of one of the glass doors opening had Elain jumping to her feet, excuses on her lips before she saw the shine of her older sisters skirts.  
  
Silently, Nesta walked down the balcony to Elain and sank down onto the cold stone herself. In the moonlight, her pale grey dress and tired face were much the same luminous color. Elain thought, not for the first time, that her older sister might have been better off if she were the one dragged to faery. Stillness- the lack of real answers- to be backed into a corner was what always ruined Nesta in the end.  
  
“I thought you went to bed,” Elain murmured, sinking down until their shoulders touched.  
  
Nesta sighed and Elain felt the moment her straight spine curved. “Lord Macon arrived,” Nesta said, colder than the night air. Elain knew well enough none of that sharpness was for her. “We have to indulge him, at least until father returns.”  
  
They both knew their father was never coming home. That they didn't even want him to, even if it would make them safer. But even alone here, neither would say those vulnerable words with their house full of gentry.  
  
The Archerons were rich again- safe again. But how safe could two heiresses be in the wild human country that bordered the Wall? The second they’d had the funds to secure ships their father had disappeared back to the sea. Only distant noble blood in their veins and the fair lines of their cheeks remained of the long dead Lady Asteria Archeron.  
  
The sisters were on their own, as they always had been.  
  
So Elain became a _darling_ \- she hosted balls and gave to noble women’s charities. Established committees and revelries, provided them every cover gentility could allow.  
  
Tonight’s smiles had made her face ache. “That fucking prick,” Elain sighed, lips twitching as Nesta choked on a laugh.  
  
Her sister’s cost had been far higher these long months. She played the part of a very long, very slow traditional courtship to a lord two decades her senior- and hadn’t stabbed him yet.  
  
Elain had contemplated poison.  
  
Because she knew- better than anyone else could, that Nesta Archeron truly believed in love. That deep in unbending heart of her cold, impossibly strong sister lived a woman who was all fire. And she’d burn herself out for the people she loved- would keep on giving pieces of herself away if it kept Elain safe.  
  
She leaned harder against her sister’s side, pleased and horrified at the press of metal from beneath Nesta’s skirts.  
  
The faery daggers were shared between them, and Nesta was wearing them strapped to her thighs.  
  
The morning Elain confessed to Nesta about Lucien- about tea and poison, danger and beauty- her razor edged sister had wept. Not for Elain, but with the knowledge that somehow, Feyre was alive out there in ageless lands.  
  
And then refused to speak to Elain for days in horrified fury, but that was something else entirely. Neither of them could imagine Feyre’s life now- or a sure way to keep themselves safe if fae continued to come over the Wall- but they couldn’t throw away the connection either.  
_  
Lucien.  
_  
Inside, the orchestra shifted to a spring reel, frantically fast. Nesta sighed a second time and let her eyes fall shut, tilting her head back to rest on the stone wall.  
  
Echoing the motion, both sisters sat face to face with where the Wall lay. In the day it was a solid line of disturbance- like looking at the sun a second too long, or trying to read a completely foreign language.  
  
Tonight, in the full light of a red tinged moon, it was invisible.  
  
This was the part they never, ever admitted aloud to each other. Not even on the late nights they gathered in Nesta’s rooms, long after the house was asleep, to speak of faeries. To guess at Feyre’s whereabouts, for Nesta to share the illicit and entirely illegal research she was doing- to wonder and worry, to plan.  
  
What neither sister would admit- but knew, both, buried between them- was something close to envy. They were safe. Worried for Feyre and scared for her, but safe in human lands.  
  
Feyre was free.

***

  
Lucien seen it on Feyre’s face, in the weight she somehow kept shedding, in the frozen fear he could taste on the sweet Spring breeze. There was no world in which Tam, with his hunters senses, hadn’t smelled it too. Could feel it, see it.  
  
But then Feyre was gone, and the world was red. Red wedding roses shredded on the lawn, poisoned Spring twisting garden vines into thorns and bleeding flowers. Tamlin, roaring out that rage that had a voice in Luciens head whispered to snarl back. He’d survived centuries with his head down, but suddenly all at once the required submission turned his bones molten.  
  
Lucien wanted to defend himself against the pain he knew was coming. He wanted to defend _Feyre_ , not a possession to be stolen from Tamlin.  
  
He fought it, locking joints and face to the ground. Not placating Tamlin, but trying to tame the flames that had licked their way up into his eyes, magic settled in seething gold. Lucien had his eyes squeezed shut, counting the beats of his heart. It was a second- it was a moment- but it was enough for him to miss the first death.  
  
He didn’t miss of sound of the body hitting the ground.  
  
He didn’t throw himself forward fast enough to stop the second, to pull his friend- not his High Lord, his _friend-_ back from mindlessly tearing through Feyre’s guard detail. But it wasn’t his friend who looked back, who roared anew as Lucien’s shoulder slammed into him, who fought his unrelenting grip.  
  
They went down hard, Tamlin’s beast aspect a muddle of gold and blood as claws dug into Lucien’s forearms.  
  
Dug and cut, the wetness of blood the only physical anchor Lucien had as his entire left arm went numb, Tamlins claws too deep. He had to get him away, had to push Tamlin away from the soldiers that would die too fast in this conflict.  
  
Faerie dominance was a fickle and instinctual thing. Deadlier than the weapons they forged, stronger than the magic that defined their endless centuries of life.  
  
Lucien had learned it young and learned it well, the too bright, too magical youngest son of Prythian’s bloodiest court. Knew the feel of it like breathing, could pick out noble heirs and sense mate bonds a mile off, knew other faeries magical gifts with an instinct so strong it might have been some magic itself.  
  
He knew it all, but somewhere, he’d made a mistake.  
  
Tamlin was stronger than Lucien like this, half transformed and more than half mad with rage. But he’d always been faster than his friend. Like breathing- like he’d always _stupidly_ done- Lucien let himself be hurt to twist in Tamlin’s grip and pull him further from the ruined wedding.  
  
Bleeding- his arm was bleeding _too damn much_ \- Lucien kneeded Tamlin in the side, the crunch of breaking bone as much a surprise as a balm to the instincts screaming at him to fight for real.  
  
But Tamlin still didn’t flinch, come to the surface. Instead he snarled, the roar of a creature neither human or fae, teeth dangerously close.  
  
Distantly, Lucien had the horrible thought that the High Lord of Spring had _never_ been this crazed when Amarantha was still alive. This unhinged.  
  
True fear, cold even through the fire, slide down his spine.  
  
It was the last thing Lucien thought, before claws slid up under his ribs. Like a handle of bone, crushing horrible pain as his skin parted- but he didn’t feel it. Lucien didn’t feel anything at all.  
_  
He wasn’t in his body_.  
  
He was- red blood, green blood, _her blood- broken ribs screaming as he was ground down into a polished marble floor.  
_  
He was bleeding- _how can there be so much blood from burning? Willow sap blood, autumn’s cost, his brother’s blood staining his skin.  
_  
He was in the air- _Eris had him against the wall by his throat. He could take him in an even fight- he could- but not like this, not with her-  
_  
He was flying- _transformed into an owl, into a wolf, at Tamlin’s behest-_ red blood, green grass, the world was blurring past his eyes- _Elain’s laugh-_  
  
He was burning.  
  
Lucien came to the beat after impact- head ringing, body _ringing,_ the riven trunk of the tree Tamlin had thrown him into- _thrown him through_ \- catching fire at the touch of his skin. Teeth bared, vision blurred, but it wasn’t a Spring Lord who sat up and looked for Tamlin.  
  
But the High Lord had transformed and vanished, the sound him running through the forest unnaturally loud in Lucien’s ears.  
  
Leaving him, gasping and bleeding, responsible for the bodies of two soldiers he’d trained since their youth.  
  
No. _Tamlin_ was responsible.  
  
Lucien could still feel his friend’s empty eyes. The gaze of the High Lord of Spring, where madness and becoming lived. Where something might have been broken for a long, long time. Lucien had fought with Tamlin before, interceded in years past, but Tam had never looked at him like a true opponent. Like Lucien was an equal, a _challenger_ , and he was going to rip off his fucking head.  
  
Had torn through Cian and Oisin like they were nothing at all.  
  
Lucien knew , without a doubt, Tamlin had felt that magic fighting to be free in his oldest advisor and dearest friend. Had met it head on and decided in that bloody instant, that he was fighting a real enemy.  
  
He couldn’t stay here, dazed and lost in the growing dark. Couldn’t help these males he’d trained, finish the village rebuilding, stay to talk Tamlin out of declaring war on the Night Court.  
  
Because even when Tamlin found his reason his again, Lucien wouldn’t be safe.  
  
The second he’d fought back he’d sealed his fate- not an adviser, a _challenger_.  
  
There was nothing of his friend left right now- and perhaps there hadn’t been for a long, long time. Lucien couldn’t help these faeries, but there was someone left he could.  
  
Someone Lucien was sure Tamlin knew about, and wouldn’t hesitate for a second to use somehow to get Feyre back.  
  
Sky bright, blood trailing after him, Lucien followed the roaring into the woods.  
  
He could feel it now- the Hunters moon as it rose in his veins. The ease of it, to bleed wicked spring blood into old spring soil, like hunting any wild beast.  
Lucien was the son of forests far older than these. Once he’d earned his crown of bone, under the power of the dying year, the hate of a high lord watching over him. Flooded with fear and adrenaline, the old magic of violence danced beneath his skin.  
  
Lucien shook off the crushing pain. He was a survivor, and after all these miserable years, he burned still. Even among Spring green trees, he could have slaughtered Tamlin.  
  
The absolute fact of that knowledge took whatever breathe had remained in his screaming lungs, made him stand straight in the blood loss haze.  
  
Through the ringing in his ears, Tamlins rampage could be heard, the only thing dividing the sound of a fae lord from the animals he killed roaring volume.  
Killing, because even after all these centuries, Tam couldn’t channel the rage.  
  
Lucien had always known it, like knowing that he was cornered in Spring, that Tamlin resented the power in his blood instead of bending it to his will.  
  
But it was that power that had saved Lucien, once upon a time ago. Power that had made him stay- and made him think he was weak. He owed Tamlin his life for that day, when Lucien really had been weak, been determined to die after the worst loss of his life. But now?  
  
Now Lucien, blood covered and listening to the leader he’d followed howl like a beast, had to face that the old debt between them was more than repaid. He’d crossed the gods damned wall for Tamlin, ready to give his life. So miserable and grateful, so cut off from himself, to sacrifice every endless year of an immortal life just so that the broken faerie that saved him might break a curse.  
  
For what? Lucien’s vision blurred around the edges, darkness as tempting as a caress. Pain pounded in the same tempo of his heartbeat. But he made himself walk, pulled forth the the strength to run. Not after Tamlin, but toward the Wall.  
  
He’d wanted to die, been ready to die for his friend again and again, and what had he gotten in return?  
  
The opportunity to be a good servant? Not an ally. To have Feyre waste away before them, unable to help, unable to make the faerie he’d thought to be his closest friend listen to him even for a minute. Betrayal that twisted in his gut, churning with the concussed nausea that would take hours to heal. He was glad Rhysand had Feyre with him, glad his oldest of enemies could keep her safe from the lord who loved her.  
  
He had to slow, staggering to boundary oaks that marked Spring Court land. If he passed out in these woods, he wasn’t sure he’d ever wake up. Were Tamlin to find him, it was easy to assume he’d kill before he thought. If Lucien didn’t get away, if he stopped holding back, he _was_ going to kill his friend. Fire in his veins and confusion in his heart, fracture lines on every surface. Lucien knew he would do it- if Tamlin beyond reach of logic came at him, Lucien would kill him rather than take the pain ever again.  
  
Dizziness pulling at him hard, Lucien didn’t notice when his footsteps began to leave smoldering prints in their wake. In his ringing ears, he could just feel the pressure of the Spring boundary, taut against him. Teeth gritted, he bore it, bearing down until it couldn’t hold him, until even the poison of the Wall before him faded.  
  
He was too incoherent to think about it, but later, much later, he’d return to find immortal oaks ash, their enchantments cleaved to nothing.  
  
So bleeding and burning, lost and found, Lucien Vanserra staggered into human lands, and found he wanted to live.


	4. Burn and Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucien makes a choice, Elain finds it was the only sense at all.

He was losing too much blood.  
  
Lucien knew, however, he didn’t have much further to go. In the full form of his beast, Tamlin wouldn’t be able to cross the Wall, but that didn’t mean these lands would remain safe for long. Burning his wounds shut now would render all this blood useless- and Lucien had been useless for long enough.  
 _  
Roses._ He’d found her there once before, maybe he would again. Even so, Elain Archeron had carved a place in the landscape the precise shade of her heart.  
  
An ideal place, if Lucien was going to let himself bleed.  
  
The oldest magic holds the highest cost. And Autumn the oldest court still- Lucien had learned it’s secrets well once. Of blood and bone, the Wild Hunt’s call- stories and power the gentry had long forgotten, but the old fae of the forest remembered.  
  
Ancient and fearful, but who had the taught the youngest son of a tyrant their gifts. On his darkest nights, Lucien still hoped he could return their kindness somehow.  
  
Now, he’d use every drop of it.  
  
Let this one family- _this one human girl_ \- stay safe.  
  
Lucien wanted to live to see her again.

***

  
In blue predawn, the last carriage full of noble blooded cargo finally left the Archeron estate.  
  
Elain watched them go with a sigh, and let Nesta lead her through the house and out into the growing light. Not to face the rising sun as it crowned their fields and orchards, but to the lush sprawl of Elain’s spring garden.  
  
Where she could breathe.  
  
No less than four invitations from their spring ball. To tea with mothers, to wild flower gathering, all carefully artificial errands. They were the introductions of courtship, and she was running out of time to sidestep them.  
  
“I heard Lord Nelson call you Eleanor,” Nesta said, tiredness rasping in her voice. “He’s as stupid as he is tall, isn’t he?”  
  
Despite herself, Elain breathed a laugh.

“Kind as he is dumb,” She agreed.  
  
“He’s breeding that horse for you-“ Nesta stopped. Talking, moving. “Elain,” She whispered, suddenly urgent. “Go back to the house.”  
  
Elain stopped too, followed her sister’s gaze. In the pink glow of a cresting sun, the darkness shining over the grass and flagstone was just barely visible.  
  
“Is that?” Elain started, twisting to meet Nesta’s gaze. There wasn’t a world where she’d actually leave her to find whatever was bleeding alone.  
  
But Nesta shook her head, looking beyond Elain. “ _Go back to the house_.”  
  
And then she saw him.  
  
So still Elain might have mistaken him for one of the garden statues, Lucien sat cross legged in a bed of flowers. _Was he breathing?_ Unmoving, unblinking, shirt and hands- _body-_ stained with that same dark liquid.  
  
With a sick lurch, she stumbled forward without thinking, only to be caught by Nesta’s iron grip.  
  
“Don’t touch him,” Nesta hissed, pale beneath the growing pink light. Gods, how much blood had he lost? What was he doing here? “ _Elain_. Tell me that is not your faery.“  
  
She didn’t have to say it. Nesta growled a curse so foul Elain felt herself flush, and the sisters stepped forward as one.  
  
“Lucien,” Elain murmured, low, insistent. “ _Lucien_.”  
  
Still he didn’t move, didn’t blink. Elain couldn’t tell where he was wounded, but it seemed impossible that was he was sitting up like this. What could possibly have gone so wrong that he’d come here in _refuge_?  
  
Nesta snapped her fingers in front of his face, eyebrows jumping up as nothing changed. Horrifically, something near a hysterical laugh tried to bubble up in Elain’s throat at the sight.  
  
Until Nesta sighed, and slapped Lucien across the face.  
  
“ _Nesta_ ,” Elain shouted at a whisper, remembering the desperation of quiet at the last possible second.  
  
Her sister only made a half regretful face. “If someone else finds him, he’s dead, us along with him.”  
  
Nesta’s slap had smeared some of the debris on his cheek. As sharp as her fear and adrenaline, Elain had the insane thought she didn’t want _anyone_ else to touch him, not even her sister. “Let me,” She insisted, and knelt in the grass before Lucien’s still body.  
  
Nesta leaning over her shoulder, Elain reached out to try to shake him. Muscles like iron even through his clothes, nothing she did even swayed him.  
  
“Maybe we can drag him?” Nesta suggested, eyes narrow. “Is he even breathing?”  
  
Unthinkingly, Elain rose higher on her knees to press a palm to his face. In less than a second- _in a motion she couldn’t see_ \- Lucien went from deathly still to furiously alive, and twisted to sink sharp faery teeth into her wrist.  
  
Elain barely managed to swallow her shriek- but it was Nesta, who immediately walloped him across the face once more- that made Lucien let go.  
  
She felt bad for it later, but Elain scrambled back from him as Lucien blinked, and awareness came back to those eyes, golden both. The grass beneath them began to smolder.  
  
For a long moment, none of them moved.  
  
Finally, Lucien sighed. “You’re here,” He breathed, voice a ruin. A sting and itch distracted Elain as she watched in silent wonder her skin knit itself back together. And so she half missed him topple fully to the ground.  
  
Nesta jumped back, standing straight to eye Lucien fully. The furious look on her face clearly said, _must we?  
_  
Elain’s wide eyes answered, _somehow,_ as she held out her healed wrist.  
  
Her older sister’s scowl deepened, but Elain saw the moment her shoulders squared. In a rush that left Elain aching and Nesta unusually quiet, they dragged Lucien’s dead weight between them. Down garden paths and over grass, hiding briefly behind a hedge from their cook on a dawn walk through the herb garden, they made it to Elain’s sitting room.  
  
Never before had she been more glad that she’d allowed herself the unladylike insistence of banning all the staff from this room.  
  
They couldn’t lift him, but like all rooms in this storied, faery-gold bought estate, the hearth rug was plush. Paler atop the green of it, Elain was left to strip the filthy, bloody clothes from his too warm body after a whispered argument with Nesta.  
  
Maybe it was stupid- but Elain was absolutely sure he wouldn’t wake up an attack her. Not immediately at least, and nothing else mattered right now. Nothing- but the long clawed wounds and bruises that looked both days old and dark enough that they’d have killed a human. _  
_  
Water pitcher balanced on a cedar chest Elain had never seen before, Nesta returned to sink down without pretense and began to pass her wet cloths.  
  
Neither spoke as painstakingly, Elain cleaned away the blood. In the early morning light, even half dead, Lucien blazed gold. Nesta didn’t move to help, not even to pull the leaves from his long tangled hair, and Elain was grateful.  
  
Slowly, another delicate, perfect tattoo revealed itself over his heart. Honeysuckle, just barely recognizable as the copper ink blended with his tan.  
  
It wasn’t until her heartbeat faded back to normal, until Elain picked up one of Lucien’s hands in hers to clear away the smear of ash, that Nesta spoke.  
  
“ _Elain_ ,” Nothing so much as a sigh, but it articulated miles.  
 _  
Beauty is a faery weapon_. They’d both been told so since they were children. _Faeries beguile, faeries enchant._ Her sister didn’t speak in censure however- but sympathy.  
  
Hands clean and wounds bound, Elain let Luciens arm fall gently to the carpet and leaned back. Made herself lean back, and take in the full scope of his growing stillness.  
  
“If something went wrong in Spring,” Nesta said, carefully. “Feyre might be hurt too.”  
  
Panic bloomed anew in Elain’s chest. “We can’t cross the wall,” She said, automatically. If Lucien was so wounded, what could Feyre survive? They knew she’d struggled, she’d fought- but Feyre was _human_.  
  
Nesta was staring at Lucien too. “We can’t,” She agreed, “But he can.”  
  
Elain opened her mouth- to agree? To disagree? She wasn’t sure- but stopped as the early morning slam of the kitchen shutters opening echoed down this wing of the house. She exchanged a dark look with Nesta, “The bread.”  
  
But her sister only nodded. “I’ll stay with him.”  
  
Gratitude caught in Elain’s throat. Because they had to play their parts- the day after a ball like that Nesta would be absent, the household would expect her to be hiding away. They’re purposeful put out rumors of her weak health- the need to recover her strength- but really Nesta usually needed the break from people, and the uninterrupted time to tend to the shipping business.  
  
But Elain would be present. To take stock of the cleanup, to congratulate the cook on the previous nights successes, to organize the thank-you cards and steal away the household accounts to tally it all when the housekeeper was otherwise occupied.  
  
They had to play their roles- to keep themselves, and Lucien safe.  
  
And the day was beginning- the households bread baked. Soon, a maid would come knocking to Elain’s rooms with breakfast tea.  
  
“I’ll stay,” Nesta repeated. She knew- _something-_ or suspected, and Elain was too tired to care. She’d told Nesta everything anyway, and would do it all over again.  
  
“I’ll be back,” She promised, rising shakily to her feet. It was hard, harder than it should have been, but at Nesta’s nod Elain forced herself to leave the room.  
  
She looked back only once before shutting the door.  
  
Her blood was still on Lucien’s lips.

***

  
It was the scent that woke him first.  
  
A storm, somewhere. A rage. But beneath- surrounding it- warmth he could lean on, fall into and drift. Honeysuckle and embers, worry Lucien wanted to drag close and soothe.  
  
He breathed it deep, felt it echo inside him. Lucien could _taste it_. That was strange enough- intoxicating enough- that he felt it must be another impossible dream.  
  
Still, he woke with her name on his lips.  
  
And found himself stared down by the older two thirds of the Archeron family, where he lay, bound head to toe.


	5. Trefoil and Temperance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucien falls in step, and tries to pretend, all the while, it doesn't feel like fate.

Waking up to Elain Archeron’s face made Lucien think he was dreaming for all of ten seconds before he realized he was bound head to toe in rope twined with ash bark.  
  
“ _Elain_ ,” He murmured, half awake, only for a second face to join hers and scowl down at him. Elain’s mouth, set in the face of a sharper, keener twin to Feyre. It woke him faster than the entrapment- he was _here,_ Lucien had made it to the Archerons.  
  
And that had to be Nesta, the last sister.  
  
To his confusion, Elain blinked wide eyes down at him before turning to her sister. “ _You tied him up_?”  
  
Nesta looked down at him and then back at Elain. “In case he woke up addled, you saw the head wound and all the blood he lost.”  
  
He wondered how she’d gotten ahold of faery proof rope, and if he could more of it for them.

“Elain,” Lucien said again, louder, clearer. “I’m fine.”  
  
She didn’t smell scared, not exactly, but his senses were so _flooded_ \- her honeysuckle warmth on his tongue, iron and care, _Elain-_ there was too much magic and hurt in this room to count.  
  
Nesta saw his clarity, and pounced on it. “Who attacked the Spring Court? Where is Feyre? Is she hurt?”  
  
Elain wasn’t looking at him, but Lucien couldn’t look away from her, not yet. “Feyre is safe,” He promised, trying to put every bit of the hope that he was betting correctly in his own voice.  
  
“Who attacked?” Nesta demanded again.  
  
Despite the weakness of the ash, Lucien wasn’t in any pain. The ribs Tamlin had used to throw him didn’t so much as twinge when he leaned to the right, shaking hair from his face.  
  
“We weren’t attacked,” Replied Lucien, lowly. Fear for Feyre he’d expected, but _why_? “Why do you think”-  
  
“Hesperia has lit the mountain pyres,” Nesta interrupted him. “Argus calls for the banner of war to rise the great desert. They’re not fighting _each other_ ”-  
  
“They fight for Hybern,” Lucien heard himself distantly say. _War-_ after all, what was Amarantha but an experiment gone right? Fifty years of complete sway, distraction while Hybern grew stronger. And now the fae countries even at the far reaches of the world knew that Pyrthian’s lords could be broken.  
  
Despite the ropes, Lucien sat up. “How do you know that? How do you even know those names?”  
  
He hadn’t modulated the movement enough, Lucien realized immediately, the sister’s exchanging wary glances. But with his words, Nesta’s face went cold.  
  
It was Elain who answered first. “Our family have been merchants for generations,” She said carefully, just careful enough Lucien almost missed the tightness around her eyes. “We trade with both human and faery countries.”  
  
The bindings bit deeper, Lucien began to taste smoke in the back of his throat. Feyre told stories of hunting for survival. Of a gentle, feeble father who’d inherited a debt too great to pay. This was not the dangerous world he’d imagined- it was worse.  
  
“But what matters,” Nesta said, cool and strangely quiet, “Is who _you_ are.” She’d picked up a cedar box, the smell strong enough to cut through the haze of Elain’s blood.  
  
Elain, who was watching with wide dark eyes. _Angry_ , eyes. That raging spark didn’t dim even when her and Nesta exchanged another completely silent agreement, and she began to unbind the ropes.  
 _  
Why was his mouth full of the taste of her blood?  
_  
It sang to him, intoxicated him more and more as the ash left his skin and Lucien was left with the roar of magic from his newly healed body. That smelled too, of Elain. She’d cleaned his wounds, bound them.  
  
It was a living thing, the shape of her touch, writhing with his skin. Burning. Lucien couldn’t _stand_ it.  
  
Like it would help, like it was anything at all, Lucien flexed newly healed hands. Took a deep breath and felt whole ribs where there’d been a gaping hole the night before- _what had he done?  
_  
Slowly, _human slow_ , he reminded himself, Lucien looked at each sister in turn. Nesta stared right back, but Elain was very carefully looking beside him rather than at him.  
  
Shame, hotter than any fire, had Lucien swallowing against his dry throat. How badly had he scared them? _How_ had he gotten here to this room that reeked of his power and human anxiety?  
  
Quiet, slow, he started talking and didn’t allow himself to stop. “My name is Lucien Vanserra,” No lies, never to _this girl._ Why bother lying to her sister either? “I was born in the Autumn court, to the Lady Sorcha, wife of the High Lord of Autumn. I was their seventh son, and studied magic and diplomacy there until I was banished in my youth.”  
  
The words scraped as they came out, as Lucien kept going and let spill all the important parts of the following story. Never going home. Tamlin saving his life. Serving a High Lord who’d been ruined from the second he met Amarantha. Of meeting Feyre _.  
  
Meeting Elain.  
_  
The wedding. The fear. Tamlin’s rage and Feyre being spirited away safely.  
  
“What do you mean _safely_?” Nesta yelled. “He tricked her and kidnapped her. Who says he won’t just follow the bargain and return her to that _monster_?”  
  
The thousand silver threads Lucien could sense between them, but it seemed like a bad time to use the word _mates._ He’d always been good at understanding power- maybe neither of them knew yet, but the nascent tie between Feyre and Rhysand was much, much more than a bargain, that at least was certain.  
  
Elain’s beautiful voice cut in, stilted and quiet. “He was your friend?” A hectic flush had overtaken her chest, climbed collar bones to render her neck splotched with crimson. Lucien had barely opened his mouth to say the _no_ , _he’d always hated bloody Rhysand, but who knew what was actually real with the Night Court,_ when she went on. “ _Tamlin,_ ” She spit the name, “He did that to you. That was the High Lord.”  
  
Lucien couldn’t describe what he was feeling.  
  
Elain wasn’t scared. She wasn’t upset or unhappy- she was absolutely _furious_. And not at him.  
  
Nesta stopped pacing. “The Spring Lord did that to you?” She snapped, “ _Not_ Rhysand?”  
  
For the first time in the whole terrible story he’d managed to force out to lay at their feet, Lucien didn’t have the words.  
  
He remembered _blood_. Sinking whatever magic that lived inside him so deep in the land that recognized the Archeron’s as it’s master that the land sang back to him. _Protection, enchantment, belonging._ Lucien didn’t know how much he’d given, but he’d bleed more if need be.  
  
Over his head, the sister’s were sharing a look. He’d opened his mouth to say something, _anything,_ when a bell tolled.  
  
Elain swore. “I have to go to the flower show.”  
  
Nesta nodded, and pinned him in place with her gaze once more. “You’re staying here.” She said, but it wasn’t laced with the threat he’d expected. Wasn’t a _threat_ at all. “Glamour. You can magic yourself invisible, or to look human, yes?”  
  
“Yes,” Lucien blurted, “But”-  
  
“Good,” Nesta snapped. “Stay here, stay quiet, stay _invisible,_ come to the library tomorrow morning and we’ll tell you the plan.”  
  
His skin was heating, Lucien could feel it. Rather than set their rug on fire he made himself breathe, _focus_. He missed whatever further exchange the sisters had in heated whispers; when Lucien opened his eyes, Nesta had left the room, leaving Elain to sink down on the floor beside him.  
  
She reached out a hand and stopped, a few inches from the arm Lucien knew had been ravaged hours before. He caught her hand before he could think about it, and red rolled over her skin once more.  
  
“You’re completely healed?” Elain asked, voice still strained.  
  
Only her solid grip kept him from pulling away. She was still upset, what was he _doing_?

Warily, Lucien nodded.  
  
With a harsh burst of air that might have been part of a laugh, Elain nodded back. “Good,” She said, “Good. I’m going to come back tonight. I’ll tell you how things are here, what’s happened and you can tell me the _rest_ of what happened to you.”  
  
Finally, Elain met his gaze.  
  
It wasn’t a request. But Lucien would have honored it no matter how she asked. “Everything?”  
  
He could smell his own blood on her. Nesta hadn’t helped clean him up. _Or maybe_ , a traitorous voice whispered, _Elain wouldn’t let her.  
_  
“Everything,” Elain agreed.  
  
Even if they didn’t let him stay, Lucien thought, this alone was worth it. Not lost months at all as he ignored the call- failed and burned. He’d lived, and he’d keep on living to hear Elain Archeron’s voice.

***

_  
_This was the most dangerous sister of all, Lucien thought.  
  
All of Feyre’s bravery, but none of her recklessness. Elain’s cleverness, sharpened to a wounding point.  
  
Nesta Archeron had a rage the other two didn’t- he could smell it, all the time, like the ozone reek of an oncoming thunderstorm- and Lucien never, _ever_ wanted to be in it’s path.  
  
But unsurprisingly, even with what could only be a quarter of her trust, Nesta held to the letter of her word. A strong, staunch ally. After the initial wave of outright threat and distrust- not to mention a light, much more successful poisoning that made him wonder _who the hell raised these women-_ the oldest Archeron smoothly switched gears into strategy.  
  
Straight-spined behind the slab of a marble desk, Nesta outlined the position they were in. Blunt and clear like the words couldn’t hurt her, she told Lucien what they needed of him. A male figurehead- a safe stand-in to distract while Nesta continued to rebuild the family empire.  
  
They needed to find some excuse to teach the staff to fight- to at least give their tenants a warning system. To learn what Lucien had bled into their soil and what they could do to strengthen it.  
  
Not just the threat of the Wall- of Tamlin’s rage and knowledge- but Nesta was not so naive as to think faery war banners rising on the continent had nothing to do with the recent shifts of power in the magical part of Prythian.  
  
But most of all, they needed to go unnoticed by other mortals.  
  
“We’re in danger enough already,” Nesta admitted, one pale hand gripping the dark stone before her. The rich red might have been the only whimsy she allowed in this room where he’d been summoned. Lucien couldn’t help but think it, like the braid crowning her head, suited her. Trappings of power.  
  
The oldest a queen, the youngest a knight. And Elain, the courtier you wouldn’t know was there to kill until the blade was in your back.  
  
“They could be used against us, or turn against us.” Nesta was saying, clear eyed, like the implication her neighbors would murder her for associating with faeries didn’t bother her in the least. “We need to focus on whatever is going to happen next, _without_ their interference.”  
  
Lucien blinked.  
  
“You’re going to pose as Elain’s betrothed,” Nesta went on, the look on her face making it very clear that if he said the wrong thing Lucien was going to find himself bound on the floor once more, “And our third cousin.”  
  
The casual sip of tea he’d taken stuck in Lucien’s throat.  
  
“You want me to pretend to be a related to you?” He set down the cup too fast, the cloudy green china cracking with impact. “And _engaged_?”  
  
It wasn’t so different from what a powerful faeries might do to unify a bloodline. But surely among humans- fertile, mortal humans who could so easily have children- such marriage wasn’t normal.  
 _  
It won’t ever come to real marriage,_ he reminded himself aggressively, fire singing in his veins. Elain Archeron’s betrothed will be a _human.  
_  
Nesta’s mouth actually twitched at the look on his face. “Vile as the idea is, it’s hardly uncommon.” She said, “If we have a male head of family who’s present, less questions will be asked.“  
  
“And as that head,” Lucien guessed, “I can refuse to consent to your betrothal.”  
  
Nesta’s spine somehow seemed to grow even straighter. If Lucien didn’t know any better, the slash of her sudden smile would have seemed utterly, _horribly_ , fae. “And keep all those pricks away from Elain.”   
  
He didn’t say anything, didn’t even breathe, but Nesta seemed much too pleased with whatever his face was doing.  
 _  
Those pricks_. Noble human men who’d hounded both the older Archeron’s from the moment they had a cent to their name. The very reason why Nesta had slid into an unwilling courtship with a man twice her age- that she so very obviously despised- to protect Elain.  
  
Lucien wanted to rip out _someone’s rutting throat_. Instead, he waved a falsely steady hand to mend the cup, the ease of simple magic as the tea spooled backward from across the desk and saucer into the cup helping not at all the burn he was feeling.  
  
Nesta’s feral smile was a taunt.  
  
He’d earned the fox mask in his centuries, but these mortal women- _girls_ \- seemed to read him like a Mother damned book.  
  
“We’re going to understand each other very well, Vanserra.”

***

  
Impossibly, it time passed.

Summer came.  
  
The staff were convinced utterly that Lucien was a military man used to getting his way, and didn’t question the changes of schedule or structure. After all, Elain had increased all of their pay.  
  
The human gentry were less easy.  
  
The addition of a new eligible lord- young, but rich, handsome but martial- was cause for talk. A benefit to the community surely, the matrons agreed. But where had he come from, their husbands answered?  
  
Who knew that the long dead and much missed Lady Archeron two generations ago had such connections?  
  
But Lucien- hiding behind his human face- only smiled, genial. Went along with hunts- _damn fine on a horse that one-_ fought in a local fencing tournament and came in a gracious third- _look at on the form of him, a fine man, even if he’s never gone to war with all that training_ \- and used every bit of two hundred years of diplomatic silk to be charming, but never too charming.  
  
It was helped, of course, by the fact that he rarely left Elain’s side in public.  
  
Soon, the whispers changed. _Such devotion,_ sighed over teas. _A love match if I ever saw one,_ roundly agreed at card tables. _They’ll fill that big house with children, bring a whole new generation of honor to Archeron name,_ decided over the chaises of garden dance. _Must be why the oldest has rejoined society, they’ll keep her busy with little ones, even if her engagement was ended,_ nodded over lavish dinner.  
  
Lucien repeated the last to an ill-tempered Nesta, and laughed until his ribs hurt when she threw a teacup at his head.  
 _  
Impossibly,_ it was working.  
  
What that big house did truly provide, was room for secrets. For the first time in years, Lucien’s magic came as easy as breathing. A full blazing strength that could have set the world alight- but he was relearning, like a muscle newly stretched, the perfect control of his youth.  
  
Control Lucien needed; a seventh son, the child of a blood moon night, the heir to the House of Oak. It wasn’t a fire he’d relit. It was a newly born star that he carried beneath his ribs, burning, incandescent- how had he ever lived without it? Behind a false face and hidden among human, Lucien was more himself than he’d been in _centuries.  
_  
And in those centuries he’d forgotten, _somehow_ , what it felt like. The call of the moon, how little the Wall had to hurt, how in laughter- because ageless gods help him, _Elain Archeron made him laugh_ \- the very air sparked for him.  
  
It was hardly safe among faery fearing humans- so control it was.  
  
Made easier by the silvered scar of his own canines he saw everyday, near invisible on Elain’s skin.  
  
The worst part wasn’t that Lucien didn’t remember it. It was that he _wished_ to.  
  
Against the growing tan of on her freckled skin, the scar flashed at him now as she reached for the basket in his arms. Instead of releasing it, Lucien extended one hand further, until Elain rolled her eyes and dropped the freshly cut sunflowers atop the already pilled high greenery.  
  
Fashionable straw hat pushed back over her curls rather than shade her face, Elain huffed and looked up to meet his eyes. “No one is even watching,” She said, sun-streaked and amused, bright as July.  
  
Elain had avoided his eyes those first few weeks. It had made him feel _sick-_ because it had made sense, because of course an apology wasn’t enough to combat her horror at faery savagery. Wasn’t until a late night meeting, held in whispers in Nesta’s office that posed as a library, that Lucien dropped his disguise entirely- and found himself held in the warm whiskey gaze of Elain Archeron.  
  
She wasn’t avoiding him, _she was uncomfortable with the false face_.  
  
A few tweaks of glamour later, and Elain- only Elain- always got to see the truth. He’d never wanted to lie to her anyway.  
  
“I don’t carry your things for the benefit of anyone else,” Lucien promised, Spring Court smile on his face. Elain saw it, as she always did, and laughed.  
  
“Not even for Lady Ingrid?”  
  
All of eighty-five and perennially astonishing Lucien at her ability to support what surely must be half her frail bodyweight in pearls, Lady Ingrid had decided he was a _special favorite_ of hers. She’d known the late Lady Archeron’s mother, she said more than once, naturally she wanted to know the young man marrying into the family.  
  
Neither Elain or Nesta had ever merited her attention before.  
  
It was impossible not to smile back at that honeyed, ever boundless laugh. Unfashionably sturdy linen dress a shade or two off from the tone of her skin, Elain led him past the rest of the blooms, coaxed high in happy flourish by her hands.  
  
If he took a deep breath, the whole world would have been flowers and soil, the sun on her honeysuckle skin.  
  
Elain stopped before a brightly green field and fished a hand scythe from her bag. _Mother and immortal honey,_ how long had she been carrying around that? He hadn’t even noticed she was armed.  
  
Lucien slipped the sharp arc of iron from her hand in a quicksilver movement and grinned. If he weren’t fae, he would have missed the blink of surprise before Elain flashed her own teeth at him and punched the arm carrying her basket.  
  
“Faery prick,” Elain hissed in a voice like syrup. He could just barely hear her laugh, trying to bubble up through it.  
  
Three months. It had been three moons of near constant company with Elain, and Nesta too. It was odd to learn the relentless rhythms of the human gentry- as idle and bored as any Spring Court faeries, but worlds different- but odder for Lucien that these women kept surprising him.  
  
Nesta, pretending lifelong frailty to have the time and distance to secretly run the family business. Sending letters to faery trade routes on the continent who recognized and respected her name. Elain, bedecked in the latest fashions while she donated to the local matrons charities- and then telling him the money wouldn’t get beyond those honored walls. Leading him to the poorest parts of their holdings to hand out food, cloth.  
  
But what surprised him most was that they were happy to see him each morning. Nesta was an unsheathed knife, but that didn’t mean he had to get cut. Elain, suspicious and curious in equal parts, spent time with him even beyond their ruse.  
  
It was _trust,_ that Lucien couldn’t lie and say he didn’t return it.  
  
He’d also learned, luckily, how to read their faces.  
  
He sketched a full courtly bow, his first since fleeing Spring. “But my love,” Lucien drawled, gaze on the ground, “Surely no lady such as yourself would set foot in a _field_.”  
  
The laugh won, but Elain also hit him a second time. Lucien grunted amicably at the impact, despite how little he felt it. He’d taught her how to throw that punch, after all.  
  
“ _Surely_ ,” Elain echoed, tying up her long hem in an assured movement that revealed pale freckled calves and very serviceable pants,”My darling fiancé would deny me nothing.”  
  
Lucien straightened, but not before he noticed the perfect constellation formed in pale copper on her right side. “Never,” He promised, handle of the scythe growing warm beneath his grip. “But isn’t clover what the estate grows to feed sheep?”  
  
Rather than reply, Elain gave up the fight she’d only just begun in repining her curls to her hat and ripped the thing off her head. Freed, blond locks immediately formed a cloud around her face in the heated breeze.  
  
Lucien dropped the basket.

“So,” He said, striding forward into the field, “How much clover does an equinox ball need?”  
  
A wry twist had taken Elain’s mouth. “Enough to weave crowns for every unmarried woman,” She followed Lucien off the path, stopping to cup one delicate white bloom that she’d doubtless planted herself in a golden hand.  
  
The palest gold, but for that single utterly silvered scar. She turned to smile up at him suddenly, blinking in the afternoon sun. “You will, of course,” Elain explained, “Be expected to add flowers to mine as my betrothed.”  
 _  
Roses_ , Lucien though without bidding, even as Elain continued to joke and explain the equinox traditions they’d encounter. Roses and moss, his mother’s long lost hearth. Clover pile growing at his feet, Lucien was sure he talked back, unable not to reply.  
  
This was the problem.  
  
High fae didn’t bite and leave scars like that in violence


	6. Awakening and Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Archeron sisters reunite, in not quite the world Feyre left behind.

It was the most vibrant, beautiful autumn the land along the Wall had ever seen.  
  
Never before had the end of summer fruit stretched so ripely into the colder season. Trees changed as they always did, but what had once been paintbox color now gleamed like jewels over the hills. Brightest of all- the Archeron apple orchard, bursting with sunset colors, bushels of apples that never seemed to grow less crisp, whose white and pink tinged flesh could cure a cold or heal a weary heart, not that anyone but Lucien and the sisters noticed.  
  
Elain had sidestepped the questions of guests in their gardens, _was that bonfire smoke? So rich, the colors here?_ But after the third or so comment about the just _slightly_ otherworldly state of their lands, Elain had smiled.  
  
“We’re blessed to have such a good year for it,” She said, real grin slipping onto her face, “Spring flowers are one thing, but autumn is my favorite season.” _  
_  
The urge to smile back had been _overpowering_.  
  
“ You’re doing it again,” Nesta said, pulling Lucien from remembrance back to their late night meeting.  
  
Posture perfect despite sitting crosslegged atop her desk, she raised one cool brow at him.  
  
Lucien growled back- a sound he wouldn’t have dared make in their presence months ago- but made himself relax the predatory tilt of his head. “ _You_ do it all the time too.”  
  
She _did._ Despite their many careful plans and schemes: making sure he passed for human, filling their roles perfectly and jumping through a half dozen legal loopholes to keep the trade running- Elain and Nesta both failed often to follow the patterns of the other mortals around him.  
  
Perched sideways in Nesta’s desk chair, Elain laughed.

She’d come in her night things, a silken slip and robe so gauzy Lucien had begun warming the room by degrees the second he’d seen her.  
  
It was only like this- after the house was quiet and still, that they spoke of important things. He’d warded the room against being overheard, but that wouldn’t stop a concerned ladies maid from finding her charges out of bed and talking.  
  
The pale robe slipped down Elain’s arm as she picked up a mug. Lucien absolutely did _not_ count the freckles he could see, even in the faint light. Paler than copper, lighter than his own skin, they glowed on her. “I thought you were going to tell us more about the Courts,” She said to him, grinning over the rim of thick earthenware they used when the maids didn’t do the tea making. “And _you,_ ” Elain craned up at Nesta, “Have letters from Hesperia.”  
  
Against one window golden faelight battered, a will-o-whisp attracted, as they seemed unerringly to be, to wherever Nesta was.  
  
All that Autumn on their ancestral land, magic bled straight from Lucien’s veins. It had been a hard conversation- one he’d feared would make this trust and easy company between them now impossible- explaining what he’d done.  
  
That even Lucien himself wasn’t wholly sure what, beyond claiming their lands and bending them toward protection, he had started. Blood magic wasn’t just risky, or difficult, it called on the oldest forces of power- and so often like wild fae places, followed its own rules.  
  
Faeries couldn’t cross the borders without Lucien- and now Nesta, who’d refused to let Elain take any of the burden, who’d slit her own wrists to be bound as a protector- feeling it. It would be impossible, almost completely, to hurt anyone of Acheron blood within their acres.  
  
They’d slowly added wardings, Lucien’s magic, but keyed to the sisters: to avoid detection, for further protection, to the house, to Nesta’s library that became their gathering space, to the orphanage and the village school.  
  
Every protect they could think of, for their precarious position along the Wall Lucien had blazed through like a forest fire. It was impossible not to notice when close- for as fas as Lucien knew, for the first time in six thousand years, the Spring Court border remained broken.  
  
It felt like a _warning_.  
  
And the warnings had only kept coming.  
  
Nesta scowled at the will-o-whisp, before shrugging an elegant shoulder. “It’s all more of the same; the Great Desert united for the first time in two thousand years, the wyrms will rise with them. And this.” She passed a sky blue paper to Elain, whose own mouth set, glancing over it, before she passed it on to Lucien.  
  
It was a sparse, single sentence, sparkling black on vivid blue. “‘The ships have stopped coming. The High Lord is closing the borders of the Night Court’?”  
 _  
How_ exactly Nesta Archeron, a human who’d never been over the Wall had a direct, if not always helpful line on the Night Court, was not an answer Lucien had ever gotten.  
  
Elain set her robe to rights. “Half the continent rallies for war, and Rhysand closes his borders? Does that mean neutrality, or is it possible all that effort is really to go after _one_ court?”  
  
Lucien was sure of very few things about that High Lord, but one was that he wasn’t a coward. “If the aim is to take Prythian whole, the Night Court would have to be eliminated first. It _is_ possible.” Lucien sat back, trying to carefully phrase the ambiguity of that male they were hoping- praying- was keeping their younger sister safe. “Rhysand is the most powerful High Lord in our history. He’s as much like the other rulers as High Fae gentry might be to a normal human.”  
  
“I can’t imagine the other Courts want to ally with _him_.“  
  
Elain was, of course, correct. “Not after Amarantha,” Lucien agreed, passing back the paper as Nesta reached for it. “Beron will see any conflict as an opportunity to expand his borders. But after the last fifty years, peace is going to the most popular option unless the High Lords hands are forced.”  
  
Calmly, Nesta dropped the missive in a thickly cast bowl he’d hitherto assumed was decorative, and touched a candle to the edge. Pale fire burst forth, incinerating it- not sparkling ink, _incendiary_ ink.  
  
“Where did you say that came from?”  
  
“One of the trading capitals,” She answered with that viper smile, aggression and secrets. How stupid, Lucien reflected for not the first time, human men must be not to feel the danger of both these women. “What I want to know, is _why_ aren’t there any High Ladies?”  
  
Elain raised her eyebrows in silent, echoing query. Different from her determined, furious older sister who researched like she’d use it to fight the world, Elain had been subtly pumping him for every shade and flavor of information about faery life.  
  
Not that he wouldn’t answer _any_ question she had.  
  
But Elain was smart enough, in those early days, to not actually ask. Lucien admired the skill nearly as much as he valued the trust and actual friendship that had followed.  
  
Still, he winced. “Amarantha killed outright the High Lady of Dawn immediately, and spent the next decades steadily culling out potential females heirs to powerful bloodlines. She assumed,correctly, that Prythians wild magic was stronger in female hands.”  
  
It was the same thing Hybern had done during the War. How his mother had lost all of her sisters- and would have died herself, if not for the intervention of the High Lord of Day. Lucien owned the fact of his existence to Helion Spell-Cleaver, and he’d been raised to know it.  
  
After all, Vanserra always remembers.  
  
Long after the will-o-whisps faded and Nesta retired to bed, Elain and Lucien remained in the golden quiet of the library. It no longer shocked him in quite the same way, her lack of fear, her trust that he knew only appeared to be an easy thing. But they’d gotten so used to each others company- the small touches to continue the public love story, the attentive behavior as instinctive as breathing for Lucien, the honesty, as they lied to everyone else- that it no longer had a hard stop.  
  
It was _natural_ , and Lucien could have cut his teeth on how badly he wanted it be wholly real.  
  
One of the great clocks of the house chimed two in the morning before they grew quiet, curls escaping Elain’s long braid as she played with the end. Three seasons passed, and Lucien still hadn’t satisfied all of her curiosity.  
  
He hoped it never ended.  
  
“Seasonal I understand, there’s a _feel_ to that,” Elain was saying now, “But why times of day?”  
  
Tired and foolishly brave, Lucien moved faery quick to catch the red ribbon holding her braid as it finally gave to slip free. Plucked it from the air so fast that, as he knew now, with these months that made him stronger and madder and _more_ , her beautiful human eyes couldn’t follow.  
  
Elain didn’t even flinch.  
  
What existed at all of his filters for this one human girl- who’d he’d never lied to, would never lie to, this blooming, dangerous woman- disappeared. “I might be one of the only faeries who can tell you that, actually.”  
  
She took the ribbon from his nerveless grasp, fingertips branding like she were the one with incendiary skin. “Will you tell me?”  
  
Smiling wide enough she probably saw his sharp teeth, Lucien stole it back. “Autumn was, _is_ , the oldest court. Still, I only know pieces. The forest and the wild fae came first. Beron was a warlord then, and bound the first territory in his blood. They say he bled out his own brothers to expand the border by each mile- it was under the light of the harvest moon, the dying of the year, and as they bled under the bone trees whose white trunks have long whispers the secrets of our dead, the red of their leaves spread and spread, Autumn, willy and old, arcane and bloody, grew a soul.”  
  
Elain’s head was half-cocked, her lips curved in a smile that he’d learned meant she had a dozen, a hundred questions. “If Beron made Autumn, _Autumn_ , does that mean that when the title passes, the territory could change?”  
  
He was shaking his head before she was done. “The problem is that there’s magic,” With half a thought, and more than a little smugness at her delighted laugh, Lucien filled the air with tiny butterflies, teardrop wings flickering between gold and blue flame as they flew, “And then there’s the magic of Prythian itself. What started as the whims of powerful, warring gentry took root and grew into something they couldn’t control. It created quirks, anomalies- Night Court has some innate providence over the magic of mind and soul. Day Court possesses immunity, there’s never been an enchantment spoken the Spell Cleaver couldn’t break. Autumn keeps the ways of blood and bone.”  
  
“ _Blood and bone_ ,” Elain quoted back, taking the ribbon from his intertwined fingers. “In all your stories, you left out a vital lesson.”  
  
He was frozen as she slid a hand over his wrist, so near tenderness he could taste it in the air. “And what’s that?” Lucien rasped  
  
She looped the ribbon once, twice, before looking up to meet his gaze. In the candle light, her eyes were unfathomably dark, pupil less pools like dryads.  
  
“High fae,” Elain whispered, tying a perfect bow tight against Lucien’s now racing pulse. “Are all _drama queens_.”  
  
He had to make himself laugh back, heart thudding in his ears at double time.  
  
When she finally retired back to bed, the sky bleeding black into blue, Lucien stayed where he was. One by one, the butterflies extinguished, until all he was left with was the scent of honeysuckle and fire, a red ribbon winking from his wrist. There were a thousand shades of red is his long lost home: to call enchantment down, to love, to bind, to hunt, to possess.  
  
A bounty, he could never, ever have.  
  
It didn’t occur to Lucien then, or for such a long time it seemed dreamed, that she’d placed it to match the mark of his teeth that lay silver against her own pulse. Elain Archeron, after all, learned fast and learned well.

***

  
It took three more weeks, the harvest brought in and the estate-consuming activity of making cider that Lucien had more fun than he’d admit overseeing to pass, before the day they’d discussed and discussed came.  
  
Nesta woke at dawn, jaw set tight when she found him on the rise of the now dormant orchards, looking down over the house grounds and beyond to the freshly plowed land, blanketed in white. “You feel them coming too?”  
  
There’d been incursions in the past- curious Spring fae wandering and returning, others, flying overhead whose providence Lucien could guess. This was something new, the feel of magic, but also that _pulse_ \- like the land reaching out to Elain barefoot in her garden, like the wards shuddering when Nesta bled.  
  
It was the first snowfall of the year, and Feyre Archeron was coming home.

***

  
He felt it when they arrived, hours later.  
  
Feyre, not as strong of an imprint as her sisters but gleaming with magic. The black, monstrous ocean on the edge of vision that told him Rhysand had accompanied her personally. Two more, not High fae, that Lucien had to guess were members of Rhysand’s court.  
  
Not that he could see anything for sure, as he was halfway up a frozen cypress tree.  
  
That was Lucien’s job in this plan: wait, hide without magic to avoid detection.  
  
Long enough for Elain and Nesta to explain to their sister the life they’d built from the ashes of their fathers idiocy, the precautions and plans in place for their dangerous, tenuous life on Spring’s edge.  
  
They deserved privacy for that long awaited reunion.  
  
And some selfish part of Lucien was glad not to have to see the pain on their faces when they saw Feyre as _fae._ It was one thing to be fascinated with faery power- as they both were in different ways. Merchants daughters, they’d grown with eyes on the horizon, fed impossible stories.  
  
Another, to have become the three-headed monster they all were together.  
  
But faeries were still the horrors of endless nightmares along the Wall. Even knowing Feyre had been transformed, seeing it could be something very different.  
  
He really wasn’t easedropping, ignoring the familiar pitch of female voices as they rose and _rose_ in volume. From a distance, Nesta and Feyre sounded alarmingly alike, yelling.  
  
Idly, he tied and retied the red ribbon twisted at the end of a small braid. The old, wild gentry of the Alder hills named their knots- Lucien wished he’d learned them all. This day was certain to go to hell, but at least Feyre wouldn’t see an ounce of Spring when she looked at him.  
  
Several things happened at once.  
  
From the empty nowhere of the shadows from leaves in this dim interior of branches, a winged warrior appeared, and shoved Lucien from the tree.  
  
Suddenly, Elain’s voice joined the shouting. Feyre yelled right back- but Nesta, the slam of doors and rushing booted feet, Nesta was _running._  
  
And then, mid winnow to the safety of the ground- Lucien’s last thought as the shadow of wings shrouded him, _fucking Illyrians_ \- the dark reached out and swallowed him whole.  
  
He lost track, he lost _time-_ it was close to drowning, seeing the world from the bottom of an ocean. But Lucien could swim, could see underwater.  
  
Through the haze of shadow- _shadows that burned,_ no familiar fire, but ice so cold Lucien knew he was losing skin- he could hear the crunch of bone and Nesta’s indignant- _not really indignant, he knew that, terrified, she was terrified and furious-_ voice.  
  
Who the hell was so stupid as to grab Nesta? She’d make them pay- Elain would make them pay- _he’d_ make them pay.  
  
But none of it was real, nothing truly penetrated the world of shadow that bound him until Lucien heard that light gait he knew by heart, running. Snow flying from beneath fleet feet, her pounding heart loud in his ears. Barely real, until Elain’s furious voice cut through the dark.   
  
A second, patient voice- a too calm voice- that told Lucien his attacker was exactly who he’d expected, was speaking to her. If Lucien had been wrapped in anything but shadow, it would have combusted instantly. They’d agreed- they’d all agreed, uncomfortable with the verdict in very different ways- that if Rhysand’s people attacked and went for Lucien as would be the only smart move, he wouldn’t hurt anyone badly.  
  
They didn’t know he was here for himself. That the honorable Spring Court vassal had died by fire.  
  
This wasn’t a _real_ fight. But he wanted to kill that male for even standing near Elain.  
  
The gods and Lucien didn’t care about his pain- he could get free of burning shadow, vicious darkness. But if the High Lord of the Night Courts pet shadowsinger even breathed wrong in Elain’s direction, this fight would become much worse.  
  
He’s seen the burn scars on his hands, once, from a distance. Lucien would turn him into a pillar of ash, burn him past recognition of even those iron immortal bones. They’d all be ash, if whoever was holding Nesta didn’t back off.  
  
Lucien would kill anyone who touched his family.  
  
This was the truth of High Fae instincts, hidden beneath court ritual and ageless years. Humans had told tales about it: the love of an immortal heart can never, ever die. It was a romantic story of a faery knight, a quest past the moon and stars to save a mortal love who was doomed to perish with the suns rise.  
  
Humans put too much stock in romance.  
  
What they didn’t understand was that the ties of High Fae were a savage thing, uncontrollable and unyielding. You had to find your brethren. It wasn’t just matebonds that made the upper echelons of their society _dangerous_. Faeries like Lucien were made for that fairytale quest- not for a maiden- but to find belonging, the very thing that pumped in his blood with every step across the Acheron lands.  
  
He’d always been alone before.  
  
And Lucien would be damned if he let the _Night Court_ threaten what he’d found.  
  
That deep water voice was still talking- saying that _Rhys_ was coming, that they were safe, that he was a _Spring Court spy,_ that nothing would touch Elain.  
  
And Elain- _oh Elain_ \- Lucien could smell her rage. It burned the honeysuckle and sun right out of her scent, until she was awash with fire. He might have been delirious with pain, but _how_ she ravaged him.  
  
It was one thing for humans to underestimate her, Elain usually wanted them to. But that any faery could look at her and fail to see the depth of the cleverness in those eyes, the absolute control and charm: markers of dangerous high fae, was beyond him.  
  
“You will let him go.” Lucien had never heard her voice like that. In response, that burning ice bit harder. Blackness- deeper than shadow, darker than any sky. Light had never lived in these spaces.  
  
Lucien groaned.  
  
And Elain- Elain _snarled_. “These are Archeron lands. And _you will let him go_.”  
  
Lucien couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anymore suddenly, couldn’t breathe. Was Azriel trying to suffocate him? He’d expected them to try to kill him- pain wasn’t an issue- but Lucien wasn’t about to lay down and die.  
  
That was when the scent of blood reached him.  
  
And so Lucien clenched his teeth and remembered. His mother’s voice saying, _my_ _little star_. The Wild Hunt, no High Fae among them, pulling him straight into the sky. Sorcha, teaching him magic far away from the High Lord of Autumn, telling him to never forget.  
 _  
Little star, we are Vanserra, and your fire is like the sun.  
_  
Lucien burned, and like the sun’s rise, the dark and cold couldn’t win.  
  
The first thing he saw was red. Elain’s muddy, icy skirts, in front of his face as she stood between him and an Illyrian warrior. Who was in process of drawing a knife whose reputation was nearly as long as that of the male holding it.  
  
Winnowing _hurt._ But Lucien didn’t care. He slammed into the ground on the other side of her. “ _Don’t touch her._ ”  
  
Fire so white it put the snow to shame ringed them with the words, but Elain grabbed Lucien’s side anyway. “You’re bleeding,” She hissed, but Lucien was more interested in the blood already on one of her hands.  
  
Staggered upright, he tried not to list too heavily into her. “Only from my pores.”  
  
Elain made a noise that went right past sympathy into fury. She moved her grip higher, clutching Lucien's tunic and coat in fists like she was going to hold him upright with will alone. It took the smear, her shaking rage, to note that blood was too red, too thick. Inhuman.  
  
Nothing he said now wouldn’t be heard by Azriel but Lucien spied it- the gleam of emerald inlay. An impossibly small Spring Court dagger, buried in the Illyrian’s shoulder.  
  
He found the hand on his back and covered it for just a moment, squeezing. Outwardly, Elain didn’t react at all, glaring out the fire like she wanted to rip the male in front of them apart. But Lucien knew she _knew,_ felt the very slightest tension drain from her body.  
  
Azriel had gone stone cold, silent. That was all the warning Lucien got the half second before Rhysand winnowed before them, bringing Feyre along.  
  
It hurt- a good hurt, to see how well Feyre looked. Healthy, strong, like remaking hadn’t left her delicate at all in the end. Glowing in Night Court clothes, comfortable armed and wearing a crown. Feyre wasn’t just okay, she was finally thriving.  
  
She looked good, that split second before she spit Luciens name like a curse. “Let my sister _go.”  
_  
Rhysand and Azriel were exchanging hard eyed looks. The melted snow around Lucien’s wall of fire began to form ice.  
  
Elain didn’t even flinch. Knowing they were too close, she was smart enough to muffle the words against his coat. “I lost Nesta on the way out. Can you?-“  
  
Lucien whispered back, because frankly, he didn’t give a damn what _Rhysand_ thought was going on. “I can hear her. She found an Illyrian of her own to make bleed.” Over Elain’s shoulder, Lucien bared his teeth at Azriel’s fathomless face.  
  
Feyre paced even closer. “ _Bleed_?”  
  
It was the same tone of voice he’d heard every single time she’d done something impulsive as a human.  
  
She held out one hand, like passing through water, and tried touch the wall. The sizzle was horrible enough- but Feyre’s clenched jaw as she called her own droplet of Autumn power was audible. Fire against fire?  
 _  
No._ Trying to spool his back toward herself. Had she really learned that? To turn the drop of each High Lords gift back against their source? But the flames didn’t, _couldn't_ , mix- Lucien bore down on the star in his chest. With a low boom that turned Rhysand’s scowl murderous, Feyre was thrown backward.  
  
Skidding through mud and snow, she flung herself back upright with a noise of complete anger. “I will kill you if you try to take her to Spring, Lucien. I swear on the Cauldron.”  
  
Elain’s grip tightened until the fabric tried to give. The only reason she wasn’t yelling back, Lucien was sure, was that Nesta wasn’t safe with them in the circle.  
  
But her shouting had become audible to everyone.  
  
“PUT ME DOWN- YOU WORTHLESS- _REVOLTING_ SAVAGE- PUT ME DOWN NOW”-  
  
The most feared General in Prythian’s history had a broken nose. Blood tricked steadily from the off center feature, unflinching as Nesta kicked and screamed. He was using that superior strength to carry her away from his body- arms out.  
 _  
Gods and immortal honey._  
  
In a kind, calm voice that belied his wince as one of Nesta’s feet managed to connect, The Lord of Bloodshed spoke. “Here, see. I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to stop you from running into the fight- it’s okay.” He repeated it over and over those last few steps to join them, like a low chant. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”  
  
Nesta was terrified.  
  
Feyre swore. “Nesta, this is Cassian. He’s my friend. We’re going to get Elain out and-“  
  
Nesta slammed her head back into Cassian’s face again, and this time he dropped her. Like they’d all practiced, Nesta ducked around Feyre to dive right into the fire and land at Elain’s other side, chest heaving.  
  
Everyone stopped.  
  
In the growing mud puddle made by the heat, Elain slid half in front of Lucien before taking Nesta’s hand. Together again, they stood tall. Lucien wanted nothing more than to hide them both behind his body. To burn Azriel to nothing for scaring Elain, to rip the wings from Cassian for thinking he could touch Nesta.  
  
But they wanted to make Feyre understand, and he wouldn’t interrupt that.  
  
Already breathing more normally, Nesta tilted her face to completely ignore the tableau of dangerous fae before them. “ _Whose_ idea was the hideout plan Vanserra? There’s blood in my hair.”  
  
She was really asking if either of them had gotten hurt, and he heard it.  
  
Like he didn’t have a care in the damn world, Lucien bared his teeth in a red-tinged smile. “I’ll show you what magic to get up to with it.”  
  
Still glaring forward, Elain blindly held her free hand up to his face. It was an effort not to catch her waving fingertips and hold on. “I got some too.”  
  
“You _know_ each other.” Feyre was vibrating with tension. “How do you even know each other?!”  
  
“Perhaps,” Elain said in that utterly steady, silk voice no one should want to be on the wrong side of, “You should have asked that before you attacked.”  
  
The most powerful High Lord in Prythian turned huge, otherwordly eyes on her. Lucien could _feel_ the power in the air, that tinge of darkness, electric and consuming- and fought back the urge to get between Elain and Rhysand’s deadly focus. Feyre opened her mouth, to protest, judging by that stubborn face, but he stopped her with hand brushed over her shoulder. “I think we’re all missing some details. We should talk. _Peacefully_.”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” Nesta ground out, “Let’s talk about how you left assassins in our garden.“  
  
Rhysand raised his hand in an utterly false surrender, tattoos flashing from both wrists. Had he _really_ marked himself to match Feyre? A crown on her head and a living vow between them. She didn’t smell like him yet, but Rhysand wasn’t just branding her as _his.  
_  
He was placing her as a ruler.  
  
With a crack of resetting cartilage and bone, the fellest Illyrian warlord their tribes had ever produced stopped in step next to Feyre. “I’m not an assassin.” He wasn’t looking at anyone but Nesta. “We’re here to keep Feyre safe from human discovery, to make sure nothing happens to you or your sisters because of this visit.”  
  
Nesta’s only reply was to toss her hair from her face.  
  
Marking the moment as much as he was, Elain leaned a little harder against his side. “Let’s talk then.”  
  
And there was the catch, on Rhysand’s smug face. _Bastard._ “Of course we will not hold peace talks of any kind with a member of the Spring Court.”  
  
Lucien had the words, but Elain beat him to it.  
  
“Luckily,” She purred, “You’ll find no such being here.” She gestured with one graceful hand, Illyrian blood drying wine dark on her palm. “If you’re looking for Spring proceed a few miles that way. There’s a hole big enough in the Wall for a small army, and the boundary wards are down.”  
  
Rhysand didn’t even twitch, but Feyre stopped cold. “You left Tamlin?”  
  
There was no room for what Lucien was feeling. “The same night you did.” The look that passed between them was understanding- more understanding than Lucien had been able to hope for. Feyre was his friend, and he’d failed _her_.   
  
Feyre marked him as a survivor, and there was no blame there.  
  
But the last thing in the world Lucien wanted was sympathy from _gods damned Rhysand,_ so he kept going. “I don’t make a habit of keeping vows to madmen.”  
  
Elain’s cheek brushed his chest for half a second, the bloody fabric trying to stick. The tightness in his ribs uncoiled, his wounds healed. Faery grace- did she know she had it? At least where he was concerned? Elain refilled his lungs without even trying.  
  
In the pause while Rhysand stared at Lucien, and Lucien stared back- _fucking prick,_ he thought Lucien could be leveled by a gaze? Rolled by that superior power? Lucien was oak, Vanserra. He’d grown up under the hateful eyes of the oldest High Lord, the first and only ruler of Autumn- Azriel pulled the knife from his shoulder and cleaned it, stone-faced.  
  
The aggression in the air was a blades edge.  
  
Elain, brave Elain, pulled on the hilt. “If that’s settled, we’ll adjourn to the house for a real meeting.”  
  
Like it was automatic, showing for perhaps the first time how much younger than the others she was, Feyre crossed her arms, scowling. “I still don’t understand”-  
  
Nesta’s hand tightened visibly in Elain’s. Lucien thought he was the only one to see that silent signal, but the Illyrian general’s wings flared. Had he looked away from her, even once?  
  
There was no response for Elain to make- already, her hands had drifted to clutch Lucien’s waist in a death-grip that was leagues away from how she’d usually take his hand in this moment. _Because of the danger,_ he reminded himself, _because you were hurt._  
  
She smiled at her younger sister. “We’ll tell you everything, but let’s get out of the snow, Fey.”  
  
Goodbye enough, Lucien winnowed them away.

***

  
The High Lord of the Night Court was not having a good day.  
  
In the deafening silence after Lucien Vanserra disappeared with Feyre’s older sisters, Azriel’s voice, more rueful than his icy face, tapped at the back of Rhysand’s mind. Rhys let him in, and the memory played back in color: Elain Archeron, more fleet of feet in that highborn ladies dress than anyone would have guessed, running through the snow.  
  
The ridiculous jeweled knife in Azriel’s arm, because there was no world under the sky or stars he’d fight back against a tiny human woman in distress.  
  
Vanserra, going off like a supernova, and escaping shadows that should have dragged him from this world to the next.  
 _  
It wasn’t fire_ , Az rumbled, _but it burned.  
_  
Rhys didn’t let it show on his face. He himself could have escaped those shadows whose scope and providence couldn’t be fully learned- but not without hurting Azriel in the process. And not by _consuming_ them.  
  
It was leagues from a traditional Autumn gift.  
 _  
Stay high,_ Rhysand requested, _but check the border. I want to know if Vanserra really broke the boundary..  
_  
With a nod, Az shot into the sky.  
  
Rhys didn’t know Lucien personally. Only in Feyre’s stories: a friend, an _ass_ , a comrade, whose fate in Spring had left her with a sick worry. He could be glad the male was alive just for that, but the facts beyond it were slim.  
  
Born after the war, but no one knew when. The obvious and only heir to his fathers court, despite the mess of brothers and carrying his mother’s name in constant defiance. It was common knowledge Beron hated his youngest, seventh son. For power, maybe- but it wouldn’t have taken much to outstrip the brutes born before him.  
  
But Lucien’s bright fire had been driven out of Autumn centuries ago.  
  
As Tamlin’s emissary he had a good reputation in other courts, close ties to both Dawn and Winter. Charming, clever- he’d been the fox in the Spring Court menagerie the night Amarantha took the land.  
  
Raw, unchecked power had never been part of the picture.  
  
Power beholden to no one; Lucien Vanserra was a time bomb. No High Lord to answer to, diplomatic ties to nearly every Court, and a long enough troubled past to bear grudges.  
  
And Hybern’s soldiers were coming for them all.

***

  
The blood on her hands wasn’t all drying red.  
  
Elain hadn’t thought to compare it before, the ruby of Luciens and near purple of the winged warriors smeared on her palm was tangibly inhuman. In the pale austerity of the sitting room they’d decided to ward in preparation for this very day, it was all so impossible she found herself smiling.  
  
This was their _home_ and they would defend it. _  
_  
Lucien, so close their sides brushed, returned the expression savagely. She’d made herself let go the second they landed, but by some mutual agreement neither had moved as Nesta stomped to the velvet-hung window.  
  
Friendship, _comfort._ Elain wouldn’t let herself think it was more- think about the way he’d looked, covered in blood and burning like a star, barely able to stand and still protecting her.  
  
“Those weren’t just guards,” She said, shaking back damp hair.  
  
With a flick on his fingers, her hair and dress both dried, mud and blood vanishing. Elain didn’t have to look to know he’d extended the same courtesy to Nesta as well. “Members of Rhysands inner Court. The Shadowsinger and the High Command of the Illyrian legions.”  
  
Elain nodded, only to be cut off by Nesta dropping the hangings with a huff. “ _Those_ are the Illyrians?”  
  
Through the scathing voice, Elain knew what Nesta was probably thinking. _Those are the creatures of our childhood faerytales?_ Warriors of impossible skill, impossible courage. As beautiful as they were deadly, who defined their lives by solemn honor. Once upon a time, the guardians of royal children; a single, forsworn Illyrian was worth more than an army.  
  
Nesta had always loved stories of the fierce at heart.  
  
A faint tremor echoed through the walls, silken wallpaper of almond blossoms shimmering. Lucien could winnow in and out- but no one else. At least not while a drop of Archeron blood remained under their roof.  
  
Softly, fingertips even now in the dead of winter darker than gold ghosted a caress over the back of Elain’s hand. “Are you ready?” It was a whisper, just for her.  
  
Elain let her smile twist, let the happiness and triumph and real anxiety show in her face. “Let’s find out what they really want.” They’d seen the truth of them already, Elain didn’t imagine she could gain back the ground of being the sweet sister it was safe to talk to after stabbing someone.  
  
At the warning of the wards as someone- Rhysand, Elain would guess- trying to winnow directly to where they were, Nesta had crossed the room. Shaking herself from the savage light in Lucien’s golden eyes, Elain followed to sink down on a plush lavender couch.  
  
Casually, Lucien followed, to lean in that elegant slump against a pillar between them and the door.  
  
Just in time for Feyre to crash through it. “Nice wards,” She snapped in a tone that made Nesta freeze tighter and Elain wince.  
 _  
Not_ Rhysand bouncing off the boundaries, then.  
  
Lucien smiled, all sharp teeth. “You learned to winnow then? Good for you, little Fey.”  
  
Knowing they’d had a friendship and seeing it were too very different things as Feyre clicked her teeth back, but smiled. “Could take you now in a fight, _Lucien_.”  
  
Beyond the threshold, Rhysand and the bigger of the two warriors appeared from whisps of darkness. “Let’s see if we can agree to not fight more today,” He said mildly, tucking both hands in pockets.  
  
With a familiarity that made Nesta’s brows go sharp, Feyre rolled her eyes, and danced though the doorway to seize them both. Tucking on arm through Rhysand’s amenably crooked elbow and grabbing the other male by the wrist, both let themselves be tugged into the room before Nesta and Elain.  
  
Feyre had said she’d found friends, that she’d found a _home.  
_  
Velvet sliding over silk in the silent tension, Elain rose to her feet and held out a hand. A heartbeat later, Nesta joined her. A grateful smile flickered over Feyre’s face, not noticing neither of them had bothered to curtsey.  
  
Elain was not bowing to the second man who’d spirited away her baby sister, no matter how damned powerful he was.  
  
“These are my older sisters, Nesta and Elain Archeron,” Feyre said, “Meet Cassian, and Rhysand, the High Lord of the Night Court.”  
  
Cassian took Elain’s hand with a gentleness that bordered on ridiculous, and Rhysand bowed over his own grip, “Please, call me Rhys.”  
  
Nesta sat before Rhysand could offer her his hand, leaving Elain with so deep a desire to catch Lucien’s eyes and smirk and that she had to sit herself and focus on Feyre to hide it.  
  
Before the youngest Archeron could open her mouth, the sitting room door swung open, silent, to reveal a ladies maid carrying a silver tray. Followed, Elain knew, by the footman who would have come up with her from the ground floor to open the door.  
  
Smiling briskly, looking only at Elain and Nesta, she neatly set the tray on the low table before them. “Shall I pour, m’lady?”  
  
The extra cups sat neatly grouped, the easy excuse that they were trying new extra varieties of tea from their father’s shipments manifest in the multiple small copper pots. More of an indulgence than either of them would have ordered normally- for all that their cook downstairs had harrumphed in her usually grouchy cheer and grumbled i _t was damn time those girls did something for themselves_.  
  
Nesta nodded, returned a small smile. She was pointedly not looking directly forward at their sister’s furrowed brow, or Rhysand, who’d dropped down in his own chair to lean back next to Feyre and watch.  
  
“No, I can do it. Thank you, Eileen.”  
  
She bobbed a half curtsey, none of them had been able to get her to stop carrying out, and looked over Elain’s shoulder. “My Lord, I didn’t see you there. If I may, while you’re all together, I’d like to thank you again for letting my Jaime help with the horses so young.”  
  
“Nonsense,” Lucien said in his human voice- a little less deep, a little more jovial than his normal tone. Elain missed, as she did every time, the sharp edges. “He’s a good lad. It’s no hardship for us to get the next generations farrier and him a horse to get down to school.”  
  
“He’s very clever,” Nesta cut in, before Eileen could thank them again. “Please don’t hesitate to ask if he has need of anything else.”  
  
Eileen’s second curtsey was deeper- she knew what Elain did, that in spare time she somehow found between secretly running the family business and handling any legal matters of the estate, not a single child on their lands had failed to benefit from Nesta’s generosity in some way.  
  
She expected the warm hand on her shoulder, but it was an effort not to lean into it, turn completely. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Feyre stiffening. “You’ll find,” Lucien promised, thumb stroking over Elain’s velvet covered shoulder in visible affection, “That so long as you continue to take care of my Lady so well, you may ask whatever you want of me and this house.”  
  
The second the door snicked shut, Feyre was back on her feet. “We’re not glamoured, what the hell was _that_?”  
  
Nesta, already pouring cups of tea, held one out. “A curse,” She said flatly, “Sugar?”  
  
Rhysand spoke over the noise of disbelief Feyre made, voice blank. “Your household servants are under a spell?” He took the cup she’d held out to Feyre.  
  
With an equal level of dangerous impassiveness that tightened Luciens hand, still on Elain’s shoulder, Nesta stared back. “We keep all the people on our lands safe from faery intervention.”  
  
Feyre didn’t let the staring contest go on long. “And _you_ ,” She rounded her attention on Lucien, standing behind Elain. That familiar anger on her face, even in those utterly fae lines, was exactly the same as it had always been. “You set yourself up as a _Lord_ , Lucien? Get your Cauldron damned hands off my sister.”  
  
Unhelpfully, Lucien laughed.  
  
Unable to stop herself any longer, Elain exchanged a glance with Nesta, found her stony sister rolling her eyes in amusement. She bit into her own smile and tried to explain. “You know titled women can’t live alone, Fey. We needed a head of house.”  
  
That Nesta, protective to the bone wasn’t saying anything was probably the only reason Feyre sat down, based on her scowl. “ _Father_ is head of house, Flaith Archeron. Where is he? I know ships in our name began sailing again.”  
  
Nesta slammed down her cup. “That was me, actually.”  
  
And she was doing a better job that their father or grandfather ever had, but that wasn’t what mattered to Feyre. “I don’t understand. _Where_ is father?”  
  
“Damned if we know,” Elain muttered, bitter enough that Lucien vaulted over the couch to land beside her, the sort of behavior that usually made her laugh. She didn’t miss that the High Lord tracked the motion. “Feyre, the second Tamlin delivered your payment-  
  
“ _Blood money_ ,” Nesta interrupted.  
  
“Father left. He took enough gold to get to the continent, but no one has seen or heard from him since. We had to forge this decades re-swearing of vows to the crown, it wasn’t easy.” A small lie- her and Nesta both had been able to forge their fathers signature since they were children. They’d been reasonably sure that as the oldest of the next generation, Nesta’s blood would adhere to the seals just as well.  
  
It was the same reason their main export and import business managed to continue. Acheron trade contracts were bound to the name, passing from father to son, twelve generations down. Faeries didn’t give a damn if Nesta was too female to inherit. Their father’s debts were paid, business could continue.  
  
“We had word of a Lord Archeron, here,” Rhysand cut in smoothly.  
  
Nesta rolled her eyes again, and pointed to Lucien beside her, “Lord Lysander Archeron.”  
  
That her older sister had not- and would not- refer to it as a _ruse_ was a boon that Elain hadn’t expected. Then again, Nesta was and had always been, her best friend. She wouldn’t admit the romantic line between Elain and Lucien was a lie, not while it was something Elain wished were true.  
  
No matter how insane it was.  
  
Feyre’s mouth was stuck in the shape of _Archeron,_ disbelieving.  
  
Rather than follow that string all the way down into Feyre’s disbelief that Elain could make any choice for herself, she turned her best hostess smile on the Illyrian warrior standing against the window. “Tea, Sir?”  
  
His face was already healed. No apparent sign of pain or bruising, which made Elain wonder what exactly, had made that scar that draped a half moon through one brow.  
  
Cassian sat, wings askew in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable, in the remaining chair. “Thank you, the oolong smells amazing.” The cup she passed him with a small smile was absurdly delicate in his hands. “ _Sir_?”  
  
“High ranking human soldiers are Sirs or Lords,” Elain told him, ignoring Nesta’s roiling frustration and the way Feyre was reacting to Lucien’s sharp edged grin.  
  
To her utter surprise, Cassian laughed, the sound like honey. “Oh, I don’t have a title. Just Cassian is fine.”  
 _  
General_ doesn’t count as title? Elain thought. The head of Rhysand’s armies, it seemed, wasn’t high born.  
  
Meanwhile, Rhysand had evidently had enough of the silent combativeness that could only exist between sisters. “It might be helpful if we started at the beginning.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees in a gesture of human relaxation that looked unnatural in his faery body. Was he _faking_ it? Or was Lucien so keenly comfortable being other that Elain expected it of all fae?  
  
“Vanserra, you really think Tamlin has gone mad?”  
  
From Feyre’s non-reaction, this was a possibility that had already been discussed.  
  
Lucien made a low noise. “There’d been a touch of it since the War, but killing Amarantha destroyed him.”  
  
Personally, Elain didn’t care about madness- she wanted the High Lord dead in the ground for nearly killing Lucien, for hurting Feyre.  
  
Rhysand raised an eyebrow. “Since the War? Tamlin was a child then, he didn’t fight.”  
  
But Lucien was already shaking his head. “He was grown when it ended, had met Amarantha in the days before Clythia was killed.” The hand on her shoulder had slipped away, but Elain felt the weight of his gaze on her face.  
  
He’d told her this story before.  
  
Elain looked up to find Feyre watching her. “Amarantha- she _cursed_ him. Of course he wanted her dead.”  
  
It was obviously hard for them even to speak her name: _Amarantha._ Elain only knew it from a story book, the tales of a faraway kingdom. Amarantha, the ever blooming flower. Red in the rainbow of her sisters. Sometimes, _ever_ was translated instead as _madly_.  
  
Not for the first time, she wondered if they could be one in the same.  
  
Lucien’s full mouth- Elain chided herself from even _looking_ at his lips- had twisted at Feyre’s words. “I hate Tamlin even more than you do, but he shouldn’t have been the one to kill her.”  
  
_Unfathomable_ to Lucien, and Elain knew it. Not killing, not fighting, but what Tamlin had done a different atrocity altogether.  
  
Rhysand frowned. “I wanted to rip out her spine myself, but stopping her was what mattered.”  
  
Feyre didn’t _know_ , Elain realized suddenly, watching the confused tension racket up. If Feyre didn’t know, there was no way Rhysand did. She had no way to tell Lucien, rigid and closer to her than he’d been a second before. “I wouldn’t ask such a a thing of my worst enemy, but I can’t say I’m surprised you would, _Rhysand_.”  
  
The falsely human repose evaporated as the High Lord sat up.  
  
“What exactly are you accusing me of?” Like the stories whispered about him across the ocean, calling him the Nightmare Lord, Rhysand’s voice became soft before it was dangerous, a whispered dream promising beauty and pain.  
  
And just like that, Lucien’s disgust melted into a rueful horror. Elain’s hands _ached_. “You really don’t know. Not at all.” He looked at Feyre, something like an apology on his face.  
  
“Tamlin and Amarantha were _mates._ ”


	7. Pearl and Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucien's past comes looking to warn of the future, while Elain and Nesta make clear they're more than ready for it.

The silence was a fractured thing, icy in the air of a palatial human parlor full of fae.  
  
Lucien wasn’t sure which would prove more dangerous; the utter stillness of the Illyrian warrior on the other side of Elain poised for some cue. Rhysand, utterly blank in shock or warning, the air around him promising death and darkness.  
  
Or Feyre, whose face had crumpled at the word _mates.  
_  
“I didn’t”- She shook her head, braid swinging. “Tamlin said it might take time, for a bond to snap in place between us. That we could be married first and the rest would come.” Blue eyes blazing found Lucien’s, “I didn’t know.“  
  
Elain scooted forward on the chaise, reached a hand out to her younger sister. “You couldn’t have known.”  
  
Feyre clasped her fingers across the low table, the difference between her shining immortal skin and the Elain’s pale grip apparent and painful.  
  
“He was ruined before you ever met him,” Nesta told her, no less sympathetic for the different shape of the feeling. “You couldn’t have changed it.”  
  
Feyre nodded, tight mouthed, looking between her sisters and powerfully managing to ignore Lucien himself, perched between them. After a long moment made longer by the tension that wasn’t leaving the air, for all that the sisters clear affection was there between them, Rhysand clapped a hand on Feyre’s shoulder.  
  
“Why don’t we take a break,” The High Lord suggested, looking only at Feyre. Her nod was enough to break up the talk.  
  
Immediately, Nesta rose from her seat. Strode to the farthest window, eyes away from Rhysand and her baby sister as he gripped her shoulders in comfort and clear affection- enough like how she acted when Lucien and Elain found themselves deep in conversation he wanted to turn back over a thousand afternoons for new context.  
  
Lucien rose himself and drifted to lean near the other window as Elain joined her, the motion unsubtly putting his body between them and the Illyrian. In an odd echo of the motion Elain came to a stop perched sideways, nearly empty teacup clinking faintly as she screened Nesta from the rest of the room but for him.  
  
Approvingly, intrigued- were the Acheron’s _ever_ not up to something?- Lucien slouched into a lazy repose, flashed teeth at Cassian’s watching face.  
  
In meetings between Courts, in stories whispered between the soldiers Lucien had trained for Spring, the High Command of the Illyrian Legions was a golliath. Savage, blood thirsty, fiendishly strategic; a stone cold killer capable of taking out armies single handedly.  
  
No matter how much Rhysand was hated, particularly in the South, no on wanted to tangle with the legions led by this male.  
  
A warm smile for Elain, didn’t make up for hauling Nesta from a fight like a sack of grain. A cup of tea was not a _parley_ \- the General was smart enough to be watchful, but he was looking the wrong way.  
  
Feyre had called him a friend.  
  
Then again, Feyre was sniping at the most powerful High Lord in history across the room.  
  
Her laugh rang out, clarion. Had Lucien ever heard her real laugh in Spring? Never after the Mountain. There was a palpable steadiness to her- even angry, even tense, Feyre seemed finally settled in her own skin.  
  
Rhysand’s grip on her shoulders had softened to an upward caress, tattooed hands tracing both her arms. Lucien could practically see those silver bright ties between them without trying- gleaming like stars, chiming and pulling tight as Feyre swore, demanded Rhysand tell her more of the countries involved with Hybern. It was easy to see- and deserved, utterly deserved- that Tamlin _could_ be forgotten.  
  
Neither seemed able to look away, to see anyone else in the room but each other. _  
_  
But Elain and Nesta weren’t paying attention to the growing heat.  
  
On a napkin pulled taut in Elain’s white knuckled grip, her fingertip smeared with tealeaves, Nesta was writing the same word over and over again.  
  
Velaris.  
 _  
Velaris.  
  
VELARIS.  
_  
Undeniably a fae name, but Lucien had never heard it. As the High Lord and Feyre discussed the human queens in such passing detail he wondered if Rhysand really knew anything about them, or just wouldn’t share the whole picture, another name joined the list, spilling onto the fine linen border.  
 _  
Rhysand.  
_  
And then, barely legible and a thousand times more damning: _Rhain.  
_  
Lucien pulled the napkin into a nowhere space, heart thundering.  
  
Neither flinched, acknowledged the sudden disappearance of the cloth from Elain’s hand. The surety- they’d grown utterly comfortable with magic, with how _fae_ Lucien was- did nothing to assuage the roaring danger.  
  
More important, sharp edged curiosity as it mixed with pride- they _knew_ something.  
  
And it started with the name of Rhysand’s long dead, deeply feared father, scrawled in tea for some harried purpose.  
  
Lucien had made himself look out the window, but he felt every step Elain took toward him, skirt hissing over cool marble and plush rugs. She still smelled like blood- _his,_ and Illyrian too. The slow drifting flakes of ice outside had ceded to a heavier fall of snow, blanketing everything in blinding white. It’s light cast her pale as she drew up beside him, freckles stark.  
 _  
Velaris. Rhain. Rhysand.  
_  
Twelve generations of Archeron merchants had traded with faery countries. That nothing came and went over or under the Wall was by political ruling, and magical defense. Humans, without a faery presence, were physically repelled. All that could pass between mortal countries and Prythian came by sea.  
  
The Acheron fortune now and historically, lay in a veritable armada.  
  
Nesta and Elain owned ships. Enough for a small army; technically bought in their father’s name and secretly deeded back to them. Inspected for appearances by Lucien’s eyes when they came to port, but handled by Nesta in all the real ways.  
  
Faery goods were the Archeron specialty.  
  
Elain touched the icy glass, as though she could reach through and catch the snowflakes.  
  
“We’ll lend out horses in the morning, try to get the roads cleared,” She said. “I sent anyone who could be spared out to the furthest tenants with food this morning, hopefully everyone was prepared.”  
  
This Lucien could do: hide what he wanted to say in their human life, and wait.  
  
He blew a gust of heath fire air over her, no pause in surprise before she smiled. “I’ll bring around cider, keep off the chills.”  
  
That their old apple trees now grew fruit that could cure many small human ills was an unintended blessing. Warm the hearts of the sorrowful, sooth the coughs from a child’s throat- once memorably, drug Elain and Nesta into a giddy, giggling joy Lucien hadn’t imagined possible- it was worth the danger of magic.  
  
Cool fingertips tapped the back of Lucien’s hand- their signal for _talk later_ \- and lingered, Elain’s palm bracketing his wrist.  
  
Her brown eyes were bright when he looked down in surprise- too many emotions tangled in her scent for Lucien to know anything but that Elain Archeron had another secret to tell; tension, excitement, earlier rage running embers through it all.  
  
She simply looked back, smile growing keener.  
  
Lucien thought of blue missives- not written in ink, but something much more flammable. News of the Night Court borders, Nesta burning letters, the sisters dropping the impossible idea of going after Feyre- and grinned.  
  
“ _Is that a wedding ring_?”  
  
Feyre had shouted, looking at Elain’s hand like her sister had accrued some fatal disease.  
  
“Engagement,” Elain replied, perfectly even, perfectly pleasant as she unhurriedly returned to her seat facing Feyre and the High Lord. Anger was a grace about her shoulders- did Feyre really not see it?  
  
“You’re getting married?” Feyre repeated, looking at Nesta. “You’re _letting her get married_?”  
  
Lucien managed to hide his wince, but only just. He knew Feyre felt responsible for her sisters- that their different skills had created an imbalance that haunted Nesta, especially.  
  
“No,” said Nesta, flatly, “She doesn’t need my permission.”  
  
The blow Lucien was waiting for didn’t come. It should have been easy- Nesta could have stopped Feyre’s fears with a few words: it’s not _real_. Elain could have explained the lie, the act they’d construed between them for safety.  
  
He himself could have said something _but-_ but, whose idea had it even been? Nesta had told him, but Lucien was sure the sister’s had spent the entire night before that meeting planning. She’d presented him a name, a life, a purpose.  
  
That that life was at Elain’s side was a _gift.  
_  
Feyre was staring at his hands, eyes narrow. The urge to wave the left was neigh overpowering- Lucien rarely even thought of the slim gold ring he wore. He hadn’t chosen it- wouldn’t have picked a confection of pearl and diamond for Elain either. It wasn’t that wedding rings were a thing foreign to fae, or even that he didn’t want to touch that co-mingling of dream and reality.  
  
If Lucien bound himself to someone, it would be impossible to ignore. He was _high fae_ \- the bond would live on their skin, show in their eyes, begat power and danger.  
  
A ring was just a glimpse- one that audibly set Feyre’s teeth on edge.

***

  
The High Lord of the Night Court had purple eyes.  
  
Not blue, not violet, a true rich, royal purple with shadowed depths in which what looked like actual stars gleamed, twinkling. Eyes where the night sky and dreams lived- across the sea, they called him the Lord of Nightmares.  
  
Rhysand, whose whole body seemed tuned to her sister like a song.  
  
She could write his name now- speak around the binding of Archeron blood. Had their ancestor struck a bargain to a High Lord with those same eyes? He set her teeth on edge, brought goosebumps to her skin if she looked too long.  
  
And if he didn’t remove the violence of that purple gaze from Lucien soon, Elain was going to do something she’d regret.  
  
Elain dug her nails into her palm, and prayed for patience as she faced her baby sister. “Feyre.” She said, “You came here to tell us something, why don’t you finish.”  
  
Surely one stabbing was enough. Surely, despite her real, true joy at seeing her sister’s face again- whole, happy, _immortal_ \- they could manage to keep this from being a fight. Much less a fight about Elain’s engagement ring- a _false_ engagement ring- when Feyre herself had fallen in love with not just two faeries, but two _High Lords_ , one after the other.  
  
Feyre, with the stubborn line between her brows as familiar as childhood tantrums, had no such compunctions. “What the hell are you playing at _Lucien_?”  
  
Nesta set down her tea cup with a crash. Elain didn’t need to see her face- to know well that only Nesta was allowed to spit Lucien’s name like a curse, anyone else damned for it. She stomped to stand behind Elain before speaking.  
  
“What are _you_ playing at, Feyre?” Her hands were white-knuckled, gripping the back of the chaise. Elain reached for one. “You brought the _most powerful high lord in Prythian_ to our home. Do you know his name cannot be written by mortal hands? That we couldn’t even say the name of the city where you were safe in without _choking_?”  
  
All Elain really heard was the breathe that left Lucien like he’d been punched.  
  
One more secret- they hadn’t been sure they’d ever be able to tell him. Something about being in the room with Rhysand had allowed the gheas to shift- the promise of secrecy from a fairytale city, told to them by their father, as he learned it from his.  
  
One thing at least, they could thank him for besides their name.  
  
Feyre scowled. “What are you _talking_ about?”  
  
Elain let herself feel the sheer _anger_ \- there was so much danger here, she couldn’t even just talk to her own sister, whose face alive and well was a happiness complete enough to wound. “ _Velaris_.”  
  
That made the High Lord look at them, finally. He ran a hand through his hair, made a rueful noise out of place in the utter stillness that had taken over. If Rhysand had been playing for human when he walked in, a watchful predator had replaced the obviously false guise. The quietude of that menace took all the air from the room.  
  
“Merchants?” Rhysand finally drawled, one eyebrow raised.  
  
Nesta squeezed Elains hand and stared right back at the High Lord, head held high. “You’ll find our blood in your charter. Under the High Lord Rhain, on the sanctuary moon.”  
  
“Rhys?” Feyre hissed, her hatred of being left out alive and well across the extreme beauty of her faery face. She looked more like Nesta now- _sharper-_ old features carried over oddly: the freckles on the bridge of her nose gilded, but gone from her hands. Taller, more graceful.  
  
Still their baby sister who wanted to protect them, no matter what it did to them all.  
  
But she also wasn’t looking at Elain or Nesta for an answer. “Archeron is one of the merchant families bound to the city?”  
  
Like he’d known it all along- the _smug prick,_ as though he knew anything about their family- Rhysand inclined his head.  
  
Nesta’s glare was going to light the High Lord on fire if they didn’t change the subject soon, and Elain wasn’t particularly inclined to help. This was going to go the way so many talks with men- with _lords_ did- if they couldn’t aim for understanding staying quiet and listening would have to do.  
  
Elain painted on her most charming smile, widest eyes.  
  
“Ships stopped getting passage before we could really learn more,” She said, real frustration in her voice she didn’t force out, “Is it really as beautiful as they say?”  
  
Feyre visibly softened.  
  
Like a flower opening, Nesta and Lucien slid into the roles they’d made together to deal with the world, symmetry unspoken. Elain had never truly hated it before.  
  
A week previous the hostess of a ball had referred to Nesta as a matron, like she was some guardian of the young, and Elain had explained to Lucien that it was a good thing.  
  
It meant the nobles were accepting that Nesta- a beauty, an heiress, the real heir to their House in a just world- would never marry one of them. Matrons might usually be widows, but they didn’t have to be. Like Elain’s engagement to Lucien, Nesta was safe.  
  
They’d all been safe, until her sister had brought home her new friends. Elain immediately stomped on the thought- _Feyre_ didn’t mean them any harm. It was both the exact homecoming Elain had dreamt of, and feared. Her sister, so damned different and utterly the same it hurt.  
  
She didn’t need to look to see Nesta’s perfect posture or quick steps bringing her to Elain’s side- that cold grace that high born humans took as impugnable. Anger only showed in her eyes, and from the day they’d had so far, wouldn’t be questioned.  
  
At the same time, Lucien slouched closer, with confident insouciance that brought every eye to the room on him. Drawing fire.  
  
“ _Beautiful_ ,” Feyre agreed, perhaps grateful for the question, “The walls have stood for thousands of years. It’s safe, not like anything on this side of the Wall.”  
  
“I could show you,” Rhysand offered in that silken voice, “In your mind, if you’d like to see where Feyre has been living.”  
  
She was forcefully reminded of Luciens words. _Rhysand is practically to faeries what high fae are to humans._ Like her mind were a door he could walk through. Feyre was smiling at the offer, but Elain heard the threat. _  
  
“No,”_ Elain said, lightly, “Perhaps I’ll see it for myself someday.”  
  
The huge bay windows were fogging with heat. No matter the ironclad control of his face, Lucien’s power was showing; no ice left in the air, just heat that smelled like a fresh lit fire and felt like the sun on her skin.  
  
He was, after all, a singular listener.  
  
They all had to be as Feyre began speaking in earnest. It was a story vast and tangled as the knot in Elain’s chest; loss, beautiful potential, and disaster on the horizon.  
  
If the Night Court was to be believed, war was coming, and it would spare none of them.

***

  
Six hours into Feyre’s homecoming the bulk of the Acheron staff went home early, baskets of extra food in their arms and bottles of Lucien’s cider pressed into their hands, the promise of a warm, cozy night before them.  
  
Elain watched them go and sighed.  
  
It wouldn’t rouse any suspicion- Nesta and Elain had been in circumstances different from their birth for such a long time their ways had been set. It was fact- lauded, if sometimes laughed at- that their shared ladies maid was critically underworked, the entire staff of maids and footmen, gardeners and kitchen staff wildly overpaid.  
  
That Elain would insist the first beautiful snowfall of the year should be time spent with family wasn’t a surprise.  
  
Only those who lived on the estate remained. The head of the stables who bred horses as quick as they were clever who wouldn’t leave them to the storm. The gardener’s, settled in cottages made fairytale pretty with the weather.  
  
Their head cook, who’d watched the proceedings with steely eyes before touching Elain’s cheek and taking her staff down to the head gardener’s house for a huge meal. She’d left behind food for them of course, as well, grumbled in her throaty burr to _stay warm.  
_  
If Rhysand wanted more potential human witnesses farther away, he could drag them off himself.  
  
It was a strange thing, to sit before a High Lord whose very presence colored the air with menace- whose _spymaster_ , she could not ignore had disappeared to _somewhere_ -and listen to him describe that the Courts had to unite.  
  
That Feyre might be a key- the child of _every_ magic in their land.  
  
Her sister spoke to him like a lover, treated him like a best friend, but laughed and said she worked for him. With a crown on her head.  
  
It was very obvious, at least to Elain, that finding Lucien here- finding them less than ignorant to danger in their world- had thrown off whatever plan Feyre had for them.  
  
A part of Elain wanted to _scream_. To demand a real answer of Feyre, to make it very clear they had plans and hopes of their own. But she also wanted to drag Feyre upstairs, to the plush, lovely bedroom she and Nesta had built for her. Show her the glass walled painting studio the next room over, ask every question she could think of about the life Feyre had build in the Night Court.  
  
Never return to the sitting room where they other were still gathered- Nesta, frustrated and suspicious, Lucien treated like a threat. Friendly Cassian and revoltingly charming Rhysand. Feyre, who thought they were innocents to be shielded.  
  
Alone, finally, Elain sank back against the long oak counter in the center of the kitchen, and let herself simply breathe and watch the snow as it fell through diamond-pained windows.  
  
“Do you trust a word out his mouth?” Nesta growled from the doorway.  
  
Elain sagged further down, allowed herself a long sigh before replying. “Not a _bloody one_. Lucien going to be okay alone?”  
  
Waving a pale hand, Nesta sagged beside her. “He got Feyre talking about Spring. You know she never saw any of the territory but Tamlin’s _house_?” Much like Elain, Nesta could only manage to snap the High Lord of Springs name. It sounded like a curse, under this roof. “She’d forgive anything if Lucien keeps answering her questions. And stops _flashing his ring at her_.”  
  
Tiredly, Elain found herself laughing, shoulder bumping Nesta’s as the shared slouch of comfort brought them to equal height.  
  
“You didn’t tell her it was your idea.”  
  
A single wave had escaped the braid wrapped around Nesta’s head. Darker than Elain’s hair and straighter than Feyre’s, it gleamed in the half light. Nesta curled it back in place before speaking, sharp face half shadowed. “ _You_ didn’t tell her you the two of you met in a garden and _you invited him to tea.”  
_  
It felt like a century ago- Lucien’s careful concern and sad eyes. Stealing his weapons in a rush of madness that didn’t go away; she saw him _every_ day, and still, Lucien’s presence was adrenaline and comfort in one.  
  
Life without him seemed impossible.  
  
“Could have told her I’m not going to marry him.” Elain pointed out.  
  
“ _Aren’t you_?” Nesta hissed, not angry- _triumphant_.  
  
The word that escaped Elain was not one for a ladies vocabulary. All their plans- trade, hiding, protection- hinged on the three of them together. But the marriage itself was not something they spoke of.  
  
Engagement traditions in gentry were ironclad.  
  
They’d exchanged flowers and then rings in public. Lucien had ceremonially dueled Nesta for Elain’s hand- both in front of people and again in private, for the fun they got out of the mock sword fight. Already planned in a scant five days time they’d be handfast, in a month, married to follow.  
  
It was the one thing Lucien and Elain never, ever, talked about.  
  
Nesta, not unkindly, laughed. “He’d die for you, Elain. That’s not friendship.”  
  
“I’d kill for him,” Elain whispered back, before straightening. “Gods know we might have to. What does Rhysand _want_?”  
  
“Right now, all he’s getting is dinner.” They hadn’t spoken of it, wouldn’t in this unwarded room, but the High Lord felt _dangerous_. And Feyre was quite clearly in love with him.  
  
Was a war that had nothing to do with them really more of a threat than illegal consorting with faeries the High Council of Queens were known to despise?

***

  
Lucien wasn’t sure Elain would be waiting for him.  
  
On the scale of dinners Lucien had experienced with Feyre Archeron, the family reunion might have been just _slightly_ more comfortable than her first night in the Spring Court. She’d been furious then- tonight, all three Archeron sister’s were sharp enough to wound.  
  
Despite Elain directing the conversation with grace, Nesta restraining herself enough to snap only once at the Illyrian watching her with rapt attention, it went _badly_.  
  
Badly enough Lucien was out in the snow, circling their summer meeting place in the foolish hope Elain would think of it, and come looking for peace. For conversation. For him.  
  
It was six long paces before he found her, face tilted up into the snowfall, ice on the edges of her fur lined hood.  
  
Lucien found he didn’t need to speak, simply held out his arm like a human galant. With an inclined head that he knew was both acknowledgment and joke- that reached down into the fire of his blood and _sparked_ \- Elain curled a thickly mittened hand above his elbow, returned his smile.  
  
They didn’t speak until they’d crossed out of the garden. When the words came they were fast and shared: Elain thought Rhysand was a smug bastard, Lucien didn’t believe a word he said.  
  
“He doesn’t mean Feyre harm,” Lucien mulled over how to explain, the word _mates_ lead on his tongue, “But”-  
  
“But keeping us alive for her and keeping us safe are different things?” Elain interrupted.  
  
The empty road was thick with snow when they reached it, the whole world buried in quiet when the moon finally showed. They hadn’t run out of observations to trade, but the touch of Elain’s bare hand- freed from mittens to lace her fingers through his- was enough to stop the words in Lucien’s throat.  
  
He took a deep breath, and warmed the air around them.  
  
No laughter, no surprise, no reaction to magic at all anymore but to squeeze his hand.  
  
The quiet held for an infinite time, Elain’s curls white in the moonlight. Could have been Winter fae but for the freckles, Spring but for the genuine depth in her eyes. Autumn, if they lived in Lucien’s dreams.  
  
It was a spell itself, after this fraught, endless day.  
 _  
Magic,_ until they crested a hill and looked down upon an old millpond, frozen over, the ice gleaming with golden light. _Faelight.  
_  
The sound of their steps raised the face of the woman who sat before it, bloodred hair impossibly bright in this white night, pale hands clutched tight. Lucien knew the shape of them- they’d smoothed his hair through childhood nightmares, pressed the first blade he’d ever possessed into his hands.  
  
Lucien’s dead stop pulled Elain closer to his side.  
  
The question was just shaping her mouth when he could speak, surprise and horror and _happiness_ spearing right up under his ribs.  
  
“ _Mother_.”

_***_

_  
_The Lady of Autumn rose.  
  
Lucien still hadn’t moved, his grip on her hand frozen. It hurt, to look at his face just then- stripped bare, so surprised the shape was more of pain.  
  
She looked _so much_ like him.  
  
A breeze that smelled of apples roasting and the roar of fires blew back Elains hair as Luciens mother closed the distance between them, moving with liquid grace. She was the queen of a lost kingdom, might as well have been a story Elain had been told as child.  
  
Beautiful. Beautiful as her son- red, _red_ hair a ripple past her waist, wide golden eyes, skin like moonlight- but sad too.  
  
A sadness that went deeper than that of her gaze locked on her long lost youngest son.  
  
“You’re not really here,” Lucien said, utterly quiet.  
  
For the first time, Elain realized the light pouring off her skin might not have simply been some part of her own being, but an act of magic. Lucien glowed like that too, a star held somewhere deep inside. It burned whatever it touched, but the Lady of Autumn emitted no heat.  
  
She shook her head. “It’s a small piece of borrowed magic.” Close enough now to touch, her less than solid form dwarfed by Lucien. “The High Lord is otherwise occupied.”  
  
“ _Mother_ ,” Lucien breathed, and Elain saw the iron control he always had- the charm he slid on and off as easily as she did, the everyday centeredness that lived in Lucien’s sharp smile and dauntless eyes- give way to something _old._ Something _agonized_. “I don’t understand. How,” He shook his head, the faintest of tremors running down his arm to Elain’s hand. “ _How_ ”-  
  
Elain sprang into action. “My lady,” It was hard to execute the bob of a curtsy without moving further from Lucien, but Elain managed it, skirt held in one hand. “It’s an honor to meet you.”  
  
Liquid golden eyes finally turned to her, gleaming like an owl, palpably, gloriously inhuman.”Well met, mortal,” She breathed, the faintest smile on her perfect mouth, everything and absolutely nothing like her son. “I am Sorcha.”  
  
“Elain.”  
  
“I believe I met your sister, once. The curse breaker.” Under the Mountain and held in sway of a sorceress who’d taken an entire country with her wiles- the pieces seemed impossible to fit together. Bowed or even bent, no hesitation or defeat was imaginable for this female. Sorcha, sorrowful or not, felt like power, an arcane, otherworldly danger, much like being in a room with Rhysand.  
  
Elain fought to not look away from her ancient face. The taut tension of Lucien’s body was so complete she could feel it beside him. A moment needed, and Elain could give him that.  
  
She inclined her head. “Yes, I believe your gift served her well.”  
  
No matter the depth in her eyes, the smile grew. “I would have been able to do more had the curse ended but a year later. She was lucky to save us, but worse is coming.”  
  
“Mother,” Lucien’s voice was soft, so terribly soft, “You risk yourself to warn me of war?”  
  
Ghostly, that hip length red hair brushed Elain’s arm, the illusion allowing no feeling. She hadn’t realized, caught in the moment, how close Sorcha had come.  
  
“Oh, my little star,” The Lady of Autumn breathed, “Many things are about to come, not all of which I can tell you yet. But my binding to Autumn is finally at an end.”  
  
Elain knew only pieces of the story; Lucien’s mother bound too young to a savage ruler. A marriage contract written in blood, the heirs that followed. And Lucien, finally, the one who among all the rest solely inherited her burning gifts.  
  
Lucien’s hand convulsed in hers. “You’re going to be _free_?”  
  
Sorcha’s wicked expression was every bit his too, for all that her features were honed more delicate and less lush. The air smelled like smoke, like herbs burning- Elain couldn’t identify a single one. “My darling, no Vanserra can be held forever.” She brushed a hand over Lucien’s cheek, sadness and hope endless between them. “You deserve the entire story, but time runs short, and there are things you must know.”  
  
“Hybern is coming,” Elain said, her voice too sharp to her own ears.  
  
The Lady of Autumn no more sounded like birdsong when she laughed, flashing a fanged mouth. “You are much more than a curse breaker’s sister, aren’t you?”  
  
A warm hand landed between her shoulder blades, familiar. Still holding her hand, turning was required to make the motion, trading the grip of one hand for the other so fast Elain only tracked it with the change of calluses against her palm. _Ridiculous-_ and comfort, perhaps not just her own.  
  
“She’s Elain Archeron,” Lucien said, like her name meant something to this ageless queen.  
  
“ _Indeed_ ,” Sorcha raised her other hand to Elain’s cheek, the ghost of a touch. “The House of Oak embraces you, Elain Acheron. Hybern will ruin this land if given a chance. I’ll send word when I can, but if you need refuge- _either_ of you- go to Day.”  
  
Lucien frowned, but the light that made the visage of his mother pulsed, returned fainter.  
  
“Remember what I told you Lucien, and _live_.”  
  
Like she’d never been there at all, Sorcha faded into nothing.  
  
The sounds of the night crept back to them- wind through the folly, the distant sound of horses calming for the night, followed by the new and faraway boom of Illyrian wings. Loudest of all, Elain’s racing pulse as Lucien didn’t move, barely seemed to so much as breathe.  
  
Still as he’d been the day they’d found him, bleeding into their soil.  
  
Slowly, heart not so much pounding as having settled sick in her throat, Elain leaned into the broad chest before her. Slower still, she settled her cheek against his fine mortal shirt, silk impossibly heated. She’d seen that warmth transmute, watched things catch fire by unintended cause of simply being near.  
  
It was a long, long time before Elain felt Lucien’s lungs fill again.  
  
“She left something in your hair,” He finally said, voice so rough and deep that even the warmth of proximity didn’t keep goosebumps from Elain’s skin.  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
Elain reached a cautious hand up, and felt- _petals_? Silken, dewy, full blooms bound in vine and something smoothly foreign, a circlet wound in her hair. Head tipped back, she didn’t have to ask the question to find Lucien looking down in answer, face stripped bare.  
  
The hand on her back made the soft trip upward until Lucien was directing her fingertips. “Wild rose, monkshood, clematis, poison ivy,” Leaf and petal brushed her hand, until Elain was touching the shape of the loop itself, cool even beneath Lucien’s knife calluses, “Bone of the wild hunt,” Onto the other side, his eyes on hers, “Iron from the heart of the last great wyrm.”  
  
“Bone and _wrym?_ ”  
  
Lucien dropped her hand to scrub a palm over his face. Gold and wheat and bone gleaming in his own hair, he laughed, curling into her space as the sound carried relief and wildness from his ribs to hers.  
  
“Elain,” He whispered, hope and reverence in one, “She left you the crown of the High Lord of Autumn.”

***

  
An hour later, sparks ricocheting in his veins like so much adrenaline, Lucien was behind the locked door of Elain’s bedroom, warding a hatbox with enough magic to destroy a city.  
  
The two circlets his mother- _his mother alive, escaping, unhurt_ \- had left behind sat on Elain’s bed, nearly at eye level where he was crosslegged on the floor, burning symbols into cedar. The usual occupant of that unslept-in space was sprawled nearly as close, fingertips hovering over the crown Lucien had pulled from his hair like it might burn her.  
 _  
“Gold_?” Elain asked, echoing his own thoughts with a painful clarity. “As in Day Court gold, for Day court asylum?”  
  
“I don’t know,” He admitted, the last twist of fire arcing between his hands. “Day court gold, Autumn bone. It doesn’t make any sense.“  
  
Gold and wheat like the crown of the High Lord Lucien had never met, a territory he’d never so much as set foot in, bound to the rowan and ribs he’d worn as Beron’s unacknowledged heir; _earned_ , with the magic in his veins and death of his touch.  
  
A rightness, a horror in Lucien’s hands- a missing piece it was hard to look away from, even now.  
  
Elain passed it to him, scarred wrist silver in the living glow of the gold, like sunlight. Not like- _actual sunlight_ , the gold forged by Day Court’s hand, the Spell-cleaver’s bloodline.  
  
It wasn’t until he’d dropped it in the box, lid shut and magic locking with such finality that Lucien managed to look up and find those infinite brown eyes on his face.  
  
“They’re both yours,” Elain said. She was sliding off the bed and onto the floor before he’d even finished shaking his head, skirt spilling over them both. “ _No._ Lucien, it’s your birthright. It’s yours.”  
  
She was feeling enough- _not bothering to contain herself around him? Comfortable,_ the fire sang, and Lucien swallowed it down _-_ to speak with her hands, pale fingers waving as she gestured between them. How many hours had Lucien spent with that careful grip on one arm? How many times had he kissed that palm over the last year, for the benefit of an audience?  
  
He could have found the freckles blind.  
  
“I was never really heir,” Lucien said carefully, waiting for the painful sympathy of her dark eyes.  
  
Instead, Elain _growled_ , so near a real snarl he swore for a heartbeat he could hear the reverb that could one only come from a faery throat, before grabbing his hand. _Fearlessly_ \- like those weren’t fire starters hands, like Lucien’s skin wasn’t still hotter than any living things should be.  
  
“Beron’s fault is not yours,” Elain whispered back, utterly fierce. “You told me the power chooses the heir. Nothing that ancient prick does can change who you are.”  
 _  
Who he was_. A faery who’d never belonged to anything or anywhere but here; with these mortal women, with this family right on the edge of war. Autumn undeniably- Lucien could call down the Wild Hunt from the sky, hear the wind through the bone trees even now if he tried, find a bloodlines heir with instinct alone- he _was_ Autumn.  
  
He would always be Autumn.  
  
But he’d never wanted to rule, never really thought he would. The most powerful of Sorcha’s sons; but the gentry of that court had been shaped by Beron’s cruelty for eons, Lucien was not enough one of them to be a High Lord.  
  
Not an heir, not an emissary, not even Lysander Archeron: just Lucien Vanserra.  
  
It was settled, he’d realized, as deep as the immortality locked is his bones, the fire pounding in his blood; Elain Acrheron wore the crown of Autumn and leaned into his touch like she’d been born for it, and Lucien didn’t want anything else.  
  
Certainty felt like bravery.  
  
“It could still choose me,” He admitted, leaning closer, slowly enough that the entire motion was telegraphed. Elain sighed, the noise all temper, drifting through Lucien’s hair as it slid to curtain them both. “But she gave it to you for a reason, it’ll keep you safe.”  
  
Impossibly, after this day of conflict with Feyre, with the cauldron-damned Night Court, after this surreal magic drenched last hour and despite the exhaustion he smelt, clinging to her skin, Elain looked comfortable.  
  
Curious, frustrated, eyes roaming his face- but utterly comfortable spilled on the floor, curved so close together their legs touched, the lamplight only reaching her face through a screen of red hair, glamour long forgotten.  
  
“You don’t want to be High Lord,” She finally said, close enough he felt the words on his own mouth.  
  
His lips quirked up without conscious permission. “I wanted to be heir,” Lucien said. “To be recognized. I wanted enough power to keep others safe- and that couldn’t be taken away. Autumn’s borders won’t accept me, but I could call on those forests from here and be answered.”  
  
“To keep us safe?” The way she said it didn’t feel like a question.  
  
There couldn’t be a way she didn’t know- Elain Acheron, a thousand times more clever than most realized. His lungs, his heart. And Nesta, his left hand, a sword and shield before them both.  
  
Careful, like a child’s promise, Lucien hooked one pinky through hers. “I’d turn Hybern to ash if he looks our way.”  
  
A joking tone had taken over, self protection if there ever was any. But Elain heard the truth.  
  
She swung their joined hands, for all that there was barely room to move between them. “I’ll stab him in throat, you can burn the body,” Elain promised, looking down. “I imagine even faery kings can’t wield magic if they’re choking on blood.”  
  
She was a savage in lace and velvet, her quick mortal heart loud in his ears.  
  
Before he could weigh the action, Lucien snatched up the other crown, feeling the biting sting as it rejected him, burn sinking into his palms in the second it took to place that bone wreath on Elain’s head.  
  
“Wear it,” Lucien whispered, feeling as though he were under enchantment himself, “And it will give you the strength to defeat your enemies.”  
  
Her smile didn’t break the spell, but changed it to something softer. “The wheat,” She began, leaning back to see him fully. “The gold, it smelled like fire.”  
  
What did Autumn and Day have in common? Nothing, _everything_ \- courts of old magic and deep nature, a power that could burn and bind.  
  
He knew it before she said it. “Like your acorn.” Like his _magic.  
_  
Lucien didn’t know what it meant, anymore than he could say what was coming. They’d hide the crowns together, he knew. Wake up tomorrow in different beds, try to understand, to thwart whatever asinine plan Feyre and her chosen High Lord wanted them dragged into. Tell Nesta they’d been warned, try to plan for war and conflict.  
  
Tuck away this secret between them, until it had meaning.  
  
Autumn Court, Day Court, _gods-forshaken Night Court_ \- what did it matter?  
  
Lucien belonged to Elain Archeron, and that wasn’t ever changing.


	8. Destined and Dreamt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein destiny beckons and never, ever, lies.

Nesta Archeron wasn’t sleeping.  
  
Wrapped in a quilted silk robe, she paced the length of her bedroom, once, twice, before giving into the urge to throw back the curtains from her windows. It was the darkest part of the night. Thick clouds had long shrouded the stars, the only light the reflection back from the fire burning in the grate across the room.  
  


But still, it felt a little easier to breathe.  
  


Her life had felt like cage for a long, long time. Like any other creature of clipped wings, when Nesta slept, she dreamt of the sky.  
  


There were so many places she hadn’t seen and longed for: the impossible high mountain gardens in the Sky kingdom, the sharp gold eyed fairies of Hesperia; that Blooming Country, under their lavender sky. The horrible beauty over the Wall, wilder and more dangerous than the fae of the continent she worked with. Fifteen thousand year old trade routes that crossed between the sacred spaces of the Great Desert, books written by the hands of gods in the Weeping City.  
  


The mountain peaks in her dreams, so vast their summits turned the very wind to song.  
  


Tonight, however, it was the nightmares that kept her awake.  
  


Some were nearly as old as she was: Feyre devoured by magic, Elain with cold metallic eyes, Nesta alone- Nesta a monster, without her sisters.  
  


Newer, was what was haunting her now: humans turning on them. Elain in chains, Nesta made ready for a pyre, the horror Lucien would unleash trying to get to Elain before the sheer number of mortals brought him down.  
  


It should have been a comfort- if everything went to hell, they were going to burn too.  
  


But hell was coming for them in worse, different ways. It wouldn’t be their neighbors condemning them- if Feyre got her wish, took that gamble on all their lives, it might be the Queens to whom their tiny human world was personal property who ordered all their deaths for consorting with faeries.  
  


Or Hybern, bringing their brutality to bleed all of Prythian dry.  
  


In the very back of her mind, Nesta heard again, soft and fathoms deep, the voice that had responded to Elain’s charm. _We’re called Illyrians, born hearing the song of the wind.  
_

Behind her eyes, the mountains sang the icy air to shape. Not words, but feelings that bubbled up beneath her breastbone and completed a longing so desperate tears ached in Nesta’s throat.  
  


She had nightmares, and then _nightmares_. _  
_

Nesta had bargained and cheated, lied and bought her freedom. She might not have been able to save her baby sister- a failure she could never, ever take back- but Nesta would be damned if she failed their vassals too. Failed Elain or Lucien, besides.  
  


The cold wind in her mind was a wilder thing than the chill of this snowy night, she could almost feel it if she tried. Ice and power and _freedom,_ the air twisting around her like an embrace.  
  


There _had_ to be a way to keep them safe.  
  


Beauty would not distract her. It was the oldest human story, wasn’t it? The innocent maiden and the wicked faery. The lost kingdom and its chosen heir, a quest, a sacrifice. Destiny. The trick at the end- the pure of heart is worthy, but faeries _always lie_.  
  


This wasn’t a tale and Nesta couldn’t freefall through the very sky into the arms of her true love.  
  


She’d find those mountains someday, climb them until Nesta touched the clouds herself. Cross the dangerous, fathomless enchantment of an ocean to follow the path of her families old compacts in blood. Her mothers homeland, the faery smith who’d bound gold on steel for the first Archeron Lord, maybe even Lucien’s lost and savage Autumn.  
  


She _would_ live, and she would see it all.  
  


Nesta just had to find a safe route through a war first, and nothing- _no one_ \- was going to stop her. 

***

Lucien was a _liar.  
_  
It was possible it was in his blood- learned over the cradle, crooned by his mother the deceptions that would keep him safe.  
  
He’d let himself believe the lie he could survive Beron intact in youthful fury. Shed his colors and lied through centuries of brittle, false Spring Court charm.  
  
He would lie now- lie and burn and bleed if it meant he could protect the Archeron sisters from what was coming.  
  
Sleep had never arrived.  
  


When Elain finally gave into the overwhelming exhaustion of magic and conflict a few hours before dawn, he’s stayed still. Felt the soft sigh against his shoulder as her eyes tipped shut, halfway through the litany of what he knew of the Day Court, the exchange for a cheekily retold explanation of the ties between the Archerons and the north’s fell High Lord.  
  
“We’re not his subjects,” Elain had all but growled, face pressed to his arm.  
  
That several hours into that tangled space between them, curled together on her floor, she’d cajoled him out of his coat and most of the asinine human layers Lucien wore these days, was _not_ something Lucien would let himself dwell on.  
  
How infinitely pale she was in comparison, the smooth curve of a freckled cheek pillowed on his bicep.  
  
“The original oath ensures it,” Elain went on, “Prythian’s courts don’t allow humans to belong to them in legal truth, but for us it’s a protection. Not under Rhysand’s rule, but we can enter the protected city- carry things from it on our ships to countries who don’t know it exists.”  
  
Adamant to his gold, but that wasn’t right either- aspen, ash to his birch bark maple, the trees that cut paths through Autumns heart.  
  
“ _Velaris_ ,” Lucien crooned back at her glee, the syllables smoke in his throat.  
  
“The City of Starlight,” Elain’s laugh had no sound, the amusement a twist in her voice as it swept over his bare skin.  
  
In an urge he’d been turning over and ignoring for the better part of an hour, Lucien risked reaching out to brush the curls from her face where they’d fallen into bright, half-lidded eyes.  
  
“Wherever a High Lord is,” Lucien found himself saying, as the silence stretched a beat too long, as he looked into those dark, dark eyes, “ _is_ their court. Rhysand has more power than any of them- wherever he is, Night lives.”  
  
His hand was still in her hair when sleep took Elain.  
  
The trust of it- asleep against him, like Lucien wasn’t _High Fae_ , magical and monstrous as they came- froze him in place.  
  
It was a longer while than he’d ever admit before he carried Elain the scant step to her bed, left her wrapped in warm down- the temptation to stay so huge- _and insane_ \- that Lucien started walking and hadn’t stopped until he was here; deep in the snowy woods.  
  
Dawn was only now cresting through the clouds, the light silvered pink and slow to reach him.  
  
It was too damned much.  
  
His mother- not just alive, or miraculously unhurt as he only hoped and dreamt of- but apparently seizing her own fate with a surety Lucien hadn’t known existed in his entire lifetime. _His mother’s freedom.  
_  
They’d both be safe, at least as much as was possible, from Beron and Lucien’s brother’s wrath.  
 _  
For the first time in his life.  
_  
How had she broken a bond of blood? Stolen a High Lords crown?And _why_ , after untold centuries of it’s wildness trapped in Beron’s hands, would it accept being wielded by one human girl? And what- he was truly afraid of the answer- what waited in the Day Court for them?  
  
Lucien had only one guess, and it made it hard to breathe.  
  
While he was already damned and ceding oxygen, Lucien let himself think of Elain. A Court’s crown should have had an effect- magic, in it’s truest, oldest aspect, shone on the skin of mortals- but Elain remained herself.  
  
An utterly human, utterly feminine beauty. Bottomless clever eyes and a vicious, brilliant mind only countered by that kind unforgetting heart- everything in the world Lucien wished to hold.  
  
It wasn’t fair, but he blamed Feyre.  
  
He’d had it locked away. Bound in so much red ribbon behind his ribs to call enchantment down- and then Feyre in her pointed frustration had spent an entire day making asides about how ridiculous it was, how _unnecessary_ it was, for Lucien to marry her sister.  
  
While he’d been braced for the condemnation, for Nesta to brush away Feyre’s fears in that cool way of hers, that wasn’t his first impulse. Like a madness- like the High fae that he was- Lucien wanted to get in a _fight.  
  
This was where he belonged.  
_  
In pace with Nesta, forever at Elain’s side.  
  
He wanted to _tear apart_ anyone who’d try to take that away. His home, his family, _his_ -  
  
Love was not a word Lucien allowed himself to think. It hadn’t lived in his vocabulary for enough centuries it had been easy to bury. Passing fondness of course existed, friendship- though his last lover had in fact been killed by Feyre’s hand, in these very snowy woods.  
  
Andras hadn’t even been allowed to die wearing his own face.  
  
There was nothing Lucien wouldn’t do to keep the eldest Archeron sisters alive.  
  
He’d forgiven Feyre- been as close to her as he had anyone in decades, a _friend_ \- but Feyre had protectors too powerful and numerous to name now.  
  
Before the sunlight reached the forest shadows Lucien’s body had melted through the snowdrift, burned so hot he was settled in summer warm soil instead of mud. A few red plumes of leaves had tried to unfurled out of their time on the oak behind him, scattered down at his displeasure between racing thoughts.  
  
He’d never burned Elain. Lucien wasn’t actually sure it was physically possible for him- and that thought, at least, was a balm.  
  
Lucien needed to bury it all.  
  
Needed the lying diplomats face he’d perfected, the utter and complete act he, Elain, and Nesta pulled off in concert- Lucien _needed_ the lie.  
  
Not to escape what he was feeling- it wasn’t possible, and he didn’t want to lose all the insane hope and fear he carried- but to face this day as the clever fox he’d been and find a path through.

  
If Rhysand planned on endangering them, he had another thing coming, Nightmare Lord or no.

***

  
Elain woke up alone.  
  
It shouldn’t have been a surprise- much less an imposition that filled her with the sort of blinding frustration a less keen observer associated only with her elder sister- Elain was the maiden daughter of Lord.  
  
Not just a Lord, so far as the gentry were concerned, but _Flatha_ , scion of a distant crown across the ocean, given their noble lands in totality from the personal property of the Council of Queens, their dangerous wayward relations contained within their own tiny kingdoms.  
  
Six centuries ago, Elain would have been _gormflaith;_ a princess named for the blue of her blood, just for being born Archeron.  
  
For her _purity_.  
  
The reality was, of course, that her father was an absent, worthless wastrel at best and Elain very clearly remembered falling asleep in Lucien’s arms.  
  
Brown skin warm on her face, the air around them sparking- with Lucien’s laugh it _ignited,_ a hundred little shining flecks to mix with the deep sound.  
  
In the darkest part of the night, it had seemed like a whole other world. Effortless magic everywhere, that she looked on with such enormous fondness it was impossible to hide, a wreath of flower and bone- _where exactly in the Autumn Court had the bones of a dragon come from?-_ tucked in her hair and humming with a power that lit along Elain’s muscles like adrenaline, easy as breathing.  
  
Tumbling into Lucien’s embrace to bask in the predator-intent, faery savage way he watched her face.  
  
His hand in her hair. Gentle, _so impossibly gentle_ as curls rasped over knife callouses, the gesture completely separate from the wickedness in his molten eyes.  
  
Waking up alone, under no less than three layers.  
  
Elain bit the inside of her cheek and rolled over, kicking off suffocating blankets two and three as she went. The one left tucked around her with the precision of rolled pastry was rabbit fur- warm, soft, and usually housed across the room on a divan near exclusively used by Nesta.  
  
The perfect repose of a noble heiress- but most women of Elain’s outsize standing were _not_ hiding a house full of dangerous faeries.  
  
Did not turn every bit of glittering charm and very real companionship on their fake- _but not quite_ \- fiancé to get them out of their eminently fashionable great coat, all the way down to a silken tunic that left perfect, near obscenely sculpted arms bare, only for _fire_ to paint the air with happiness. The average daughter of _Flatha_ weren’t able to summon the crown of Court of Prythian out of thin air, or possess a High Fae sister, and a triplicate strand of pearls that lived on her wrist to hide a scar whose sensitivity felt like- _felt like_ -  
  
Elain rolled back over and groaned.  
  
There were a thousand things to do. Nesta needed to know that Sorcha had passed them off impossible power, offered refuge that could reshape their plans. Lucien needed to sign off their shipping manifests, go to port and glamour smuggled faerie cargo.  
  
Their farms needed the roads cleared, the staff accounted for in the blizzard, extra supplies taken to the orphanage to begin the winter holiday celebrations. A ball to finish planning, ash wood to burn and hide, Feyre’s arrival to stage so that she could move freely at home.  
  
Elain was _busy._ But instead of moving she was staring out the diamond paned window that showed her pink sky and blinding white snow; thinking about Lucien’s _hands.  
_  
She wanted to hold those hands and let their matching rings clank together. Let him feel the pulse in her wrist andsee how pleasure arced over her skin from that silvered mark.  
  
She wanted Lucien at her side for _everything.  
_

_***_

_  
_Back in fighting form, at least on the surface, Lucien was more intrigued than alarmed when halfway back home he ran into Feyre, coming out of the woods.  
  
It was that old friendship- Feyre the huntress, Feyre the human unafraid of magic tempered spring green groves, Feyre newly changed and desperate to be outside- that kept him from the immediate warning sign.  
  
She was alone, for one thing.  
  
Smiled that cocky, antagonistic smile he hadn’t seen since she was a human. “Vanserra,” She called, and Lucien heard _cauldron damned Rhysand_ in the syllables.  
  
It was _not_ like when Nesta called him by his surname.  
  
Because being pricks to each other was the friendly foundation for them, Lucien squashed his shoulder into hers in reply, the snow liberally sprinkled in her hair sliding over his still bare arms. “Where’s your crown, little Fey? Thought Night Court fashion had rubbed off on you.”  
  
With a half smiling snarl, Feyre used both hands to send him careening, before hiding them away in the deep pockets of a gigantic leather coat he could smell Illyrian blood on. Hair in a simple braid, she was leagues closer to the woman he’d known.  
  
“Rhys is _dramatic_ ,” She said, unbearably fondly.  
  
Rhysand was setting her up as an equal, and the ruler of the most populous court in Prythian, but Lucien was not going to be the person to tell her that.  
  
“Dramatic,” Lucien repeated with a grimace, melting the snow in his path. He didn’t miss that Feyre watched impossibly fast motion- ice to slush to water, soaking deep into the soil at his behest- with rapt attention. “What are you doing out here?”  
  
He was going to make a joke about her hunting pheasant with unfair fey advantage, perhaps extol the virtues of the terrifying, wonderful woman Nesta had employed as a cook and really grind in the fact of his life _here,_ when Feyre blinked. 

And then again.  
  
High Fae tells were dangerous, subtle things. Control was a mark of age, and power, with the rush of instincts that ran thick in their blood with adulthood. High Lords were volatile, courtiers _deadly_.  
  
Feyre, for all her obvious immortal grace and power, still feigned like the nineteen year old mortal she was in many ways.  
  
And lied like one.  
  
“Practicing,” Feyre recited, face normal and eyelashes fluttering. Untruth changed the entire tone of her voice. For someone who looked so damn much like Nesta, sounded so much like Elain, the lack of ease felt bizarre. “Rhys is training me, but I can’t control all the courts power yet.”  
  
The woods led to both the main road out to the farms and the local village, in the other direction, apple orchards and the shattered Spring Court border.  
  
Lucien decided to play along.  
  
“No more accidental fires?” He teased.  
  
Feyre laughed, almost genuine. “Autumn is easy,” She insisted, which told Lucien enough to know that whatever drop of Beron she possessed, its depths had _not_ been reached. “Darkness is obvious, but I’m still finding out what came from who.”  
  
Before he could reply, Feyre twisted, fluid as a Dawn Court assassin, to pose before Lucien. “Spar with me?”  
  
He’d fought her as a human. Fought Tamlin for the chance for her to learn to master her new body, retrain in old skills. Even if Feyre had been fighting with Illyrian’s every day for the last year, Lucien had three centuries and an impossibly savage upbringing on his side- there was no danger.  
  
But still, his pulse said _look closer_.  
  
“You should know,” Lucien teased, mirroring her wide stance, “I did already fight the ceremonial duel with Nesta for Elain’s hand.”  
  
Feyre stopped mid motion darting forward lightening fast to _laugh_. “Nesta held a _sword_?”  
  
Something utterly indignant, blood red and _fey_ , twisted in Lucien’s chest. He caught the hand that had been about to slap into him and sent Feyre flying back, her knees hitting the snow bank his melted path had created. “Hand to hand? No weapons or magic?”  
  
Feyre grinned, shoulders aligning. “Just one round, fight me for real.”  
  
Lucien didn’t immediately realize what a mistake it was.

***

  
Elain’s first sign something was off was Nesta’s pale face, crashing through her bedroom door.  
  
It was early enough- the house empty enough- that much like much like Elain pulling Lucien into her bedroom the night before, Nesta looked like herself. Ink already visible on both hands, her wine colored dress without the sleeves laced on, carrying both books and letters balanced under one arm, the Archeron seal clutched golden in the other- this was the real Nesta.  
  
Who tossed herself down on a chaise, catlike, to glare at Elain.  
  
Not at Elain- not really, no true malice could live between the eldest Archerons- at the _world. “_ Feyre didn’t sleep in her room last night.”  
  
The fur blanket tucked around Elain’s shoulders slid to the floor as she turned, taking the comforting smell of Lucien’s hair with it. “Did she stay with _Rhysand?_ ”  
  
She’d thought, _not yet._ Feyre might speak to him like a lover, invade the High Lords space in that half casual way Elain assumed faeries would take very seriously, but they didn’t seem there yet. There was a restraint, hunger in those ancient purple eyes.  
  
Starvation.  
  
Nesta sighed, began to shuffle the books she’d set down into a perfectly straight pile. “No, she took one of the guest rooms. It wasn’t even made up.”  
 _  
It wasn’t even_ \- Feyre had come home, crossed the continent back to the land of their childhoods, and pointedly slept in a room without fresh linen? Or candles, or water brought in?  
  
Elain joined Nesta on the chaise, silk magic warm beneath her.  
  
Feyre’s rooms were exactly where they had been when they were children. The eastern wing, where she could see the sunrise over the gardens from her bedroom. Before the house had been plundered straight to the ground to pay debt- the very beams and rooftiles sold- the room next to it had been a tiny childrens library, just for her.  
  
They’d rebuild it three times the size with more windows than walls. Elain had spent an obscene amount on fine glass, Nesta filled it with supplies from four countries- a studio, for their sister who’d always wanted, above all else, the simply luxury of making beautiful things.  
  
Elain swallowed the hurt, shared a look with Nesta that said all that needed to be said.  
  
With it went the thoughts she kept thinking seeing Feyre’s face, both utterly young and preternaturally frozen, beautiful. Mortal freckles but no smile lines left. That same unrestrained laugh, but their mother’s blue eyes looked at Rhysand for answers. She was _back_ , she was alive, she was- “Why do you think she really came home?”  
  
Nesta handed her the largest envelope.  
  
It contained not one letter, or map, but more than a half dozen missives on blue paper, written by equally many hands. Elain dumped them on the cushions between them and began to read.  
  
Humans in business with faeries had unique tactics to stay ahead. For one thing, compacts bound to bloodline meant most of the immortals didn’t care to know their business partners, after all, by their standard, they’d be dead soon.  
  
But mortals stuck together. Many of their ancestors had been the same once, royal blooded and wild with nothing to loose. Explorers, who’d gone looking for whole new lands to gift their children, bereft of a crowns direct privilege.  
  
Their descendants learned care in the cradle, and the power of passing knowledge.  
  
Blue paper for the secret city’s Court, incendiary powder ink for High Fae information, moon silk ribbons, for Sangravah, the weaving capital of the world.  
  
Elain compared the words, reiterating the same thing again and again, before meeting Nesta’s blazing eyes. “The Night Court has been _invaded_?”  
  
Of course it had come from a dozen people; merchants made money in conflict. Human worlds changed, when those conflicts were fae. The danger was near suicidal for mortals in magical wars- but those rare survivors ended up rich beyond promise.  
  
“No one knows who it was.” Nesta said lowly, frustrated, “They infilitrated the civilian population, took _something_ , and burnt half the city to the ground once it was found.”  
  
A valuable something, if they needed that much chaos to dissuade pursuit.  
  
What did Sangravah have? The best rugs and tapestries in the world. The only port where Dawn Court silk could be bought. Libraries and temples, pink light and poetry.  
  
“Isn’t Sangravah a _stone_ city?”  
  
Nesta’s pale bitten lips said yes without the words. Elain swore.  
  
For something to do with her hands she tipped the book pile closer and read down the spines: _Alchemic Fire: A Compendium_ , _Mother’s Moon: The Priestess Orders_ , and _White Stone, Silver Blood, The Complete History of Northern Conquest.  
_  
That Nesta hadn’t slept wasn’t a question Elain needed to ask, anymore than she knew that she’d find colored coded annotations if she started reading along. Completely illegal tomes, of course, Nesta’s favourite import.  
  
She tried not to picture centuries old stone made molten, leveled to the ground. The heat, the chaos- the magic it would take for that kind of destruction.  
  
“Hybern?” Elain asked, her own doubt clear.  
  
The shake of Nesta’s head knocked loose her hasty updo, wooden pins catching in the freed waves of her dark hair. Recognizing the sheen and sharp points, Elain tried and failed to sympathize with the storm Rhysand had coming.  
  
Nesta was walking around with ash wood in her hair.  
  
“Hybern,” Nesta repeated with equal dubiousness, “Or Night Court rebels, or another Court or the Queen’s Council. Rhysand has more enemies than the thrice damned _Plague Lord.”  
_  
A High Lord who had specialized in bloodline curses- a single faery who’d brought the continent to it’s knees, a thousand years before. Elain wondered if they were of any relation. The male Feyre called _Rhys_ and laughed with seemed to have an equal notoriety with his own people.  
  
And possibly worse power running in his veins.  
  
“Prythian,” Elain began carefully, “Might be even less stable than we know.”  
  
Whispering despite the warding, echoed adrenaline making her awake, awake, _awake,_ Elain managed in a steady voice to tell Nesta about Sorcha. Crowns and the Autumn Lords crimes, asylum waiting in the most foreign of places.

***

  
Feyre cheated immediately.  
  
Lucien, who’d once had nightmares about that exact look of mischief on a human face, like a Suriel waiting in the dark, knew it was coming.  
  
So when the youngest Archeron sister rolled out of the snowbank he’d neatly tossed her into with a laugh, Lucien was able to smartly dodge the ice that came railing toward him. Not sharp, but a barrage like giant hail that cracked against tree trunks, sent snow flying.  
  
Feyre had never actually seen how fast Lucien could move.  
  
And he wasn’t trying terribly hard now. If she’d been training with Illyrians all along, she’d be used to superior ungodly strength, but not the speed of High Fae. Even if she hadn’t been given the opportunity, Lucien thought Feyre would have sought it- Nesta’s infuriated face that _those were Illyrians_ , childhood legends made real was evidence enough.  
  
Rather than reengage, half a kind thought to the looming oak behind Feyre had the tree shaking every bit of wet snow off its drooping branches.  
  
The weight of the snow knocked her back down with a groan. “You talk to _trees_ now?”  
  
Lucien straightened from the trunk he’d been leaning against and tried not to sound full of the vague insult he felt, “I _always_ talked to trees.”  
  
Feyre didn’t bother to get back up, shaking the slush from the hugely oversized shoulders of her coat. Narrow eyed, she tilted her head in question. It was still bizarre to see Feyre so- the mix of her human mannerisms and the instincts of a faery body muddled, indistinct. It was even more confusing now that he knew her sisters. When Nesta had the same posture, with her utterly similar and painfully different face, it was all fae- aggression, focus, the shape of a hunt held righteous along her jaw.  
  
Feyre looked baffled. And _angry?_ “How’d you learn that from Spring?”  
  
He waited a beat too long for the quicksilver teasing smile, for the punchline. It was long enough for the temperature to drop several degrees, for her brow to furrow completely. Lucien swore. “You’re joking.”  
  
Incised, Feyre tossed an impressively articulate fireball at him, straight autumnal gold. “Of course I’m not joking. _Spring controls plants.”  
_  
Spring controlled plants. Gods and immortal honey.  
  
“What,” Lucien growled, pausing to dodge Feyre’s barrage of fire, “In the Crones darkest mercies is Rhysand _teaching_ you?”  
  
It was an obvious mistake to snarl Rhysand’s name like that in her hearing. Like he hated the bastard- which in some ways he did. The High Lord, even if it had been Feyre’s idea as Lucien feared, had brought death and danger to the Archeron’s doorstep.  
  
Was, after a sole year of what was clearly painfully basic training, touting her as the greatest magical force in Prythian's history.  
  
Feyre’s eyes visibly flashed and Lucien braced himself.  
  
But what he was met with was a wall of fire. Not warding, not bloodmagic, not sunfire, but only Autumn’s burning grace.  
  
He could have parted it like a curtain. Eaten it up with hotter flames, pulled back until it belonged to him. It was exactly the sort of magical pageantry Beron insisted upon- no one raised in the Forest House wanted to be the weaker end of that pull.  
  
Disallowed, Lucien’s thoughts still managed to flicker to the crown that fit his head. Day’s gold and Autumn bone, a missing piece, _a_ -  
  
Lucien stepped into the fire.  
  
He could tell she was angry just from its depth, roil. Like stepping into the titanic baths of a Winter chalet, like the Summer court sea; Lucien had forgotten how good it felt. Living heat coiled up his arms, caressed his face.  
  
Swore he could taste just a hint of bonfire on the back of his tongue. The ritual kind that burned and burned under a full moon, hawthorne and rowan, violets and rose. It was, he thought, painfully near the scent of Elain’s rage, protection that littered the air like embers.  
  
Lucien was only aware he’d closed his eyes when it all went away. The world was blinding white, and Feyre was talking so fast her words bled together.  
  
-“ _why the hell_ would you do that,” She was saying, “Do you think I actually want to hurt you? _Shit, shit shit.”  
_  
Lucien tried not to smirk, but the action was ruined by his recoil when Feyre grabbed his bare arm with both hands. Not that it stopped her- she kept swearing right up to the moment she actually managed to trace up his arm, staring at his unblemished skin with giant eyes.  
  
Friendly, afraid, and awed; but still Feyre’s touch crawled over his skin with _wrongness_.  
  
It had a name, a very specific reason, but Lucien wasn’t about to use the word, even in the privacy of his own mind.  
  
Finally he snarled, discomfiture actually real enough for Feyre to drop his arm in sheepish apology. Clearly, some fae things she _had_ learned.  
  
“I don’t understand,” She said, “What just _happened_? Are you okay?”  
  
It had been easy, Under the Mountain, to forget the savior of Prythian was a teenage girl. “Of course I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me, Feyre.”  
  
Forcefully, Lucien made himself remember that he’d once wanted to be her teacher. Trapped under Tamlin’s rule, less than a shadow of himself, he’d wanted to make sure the world leveling power in her veins didn’t destroy her. Now, he wondered what in Cauldron’s name Feyre had been _doing_ for the last year.  
  
And wished, _wished_ , he’d thought to take a real shirt with him leaving Elain’s rooms.  
  
Feyre was still staring at him in that half hollowed out way that spoke of something like human shock. Lucien made himself smile through the grimace. 

“ _Fey,_ you know who I am now? My history?”  
  
Feyre nodded, pulse visible in her throat. “Heir to the Autumn Court.”  
  
He didn’t let himself blink, but it was a near thing. The North _still_ called him heir? How that must burn in Beron’s gut, infuriate Eris.  
  
It wasn’t the right time to explain his banishment, the price on his head. Much less grin over it. “Could you drown Rhysand in darkness?”  
  
Caught between the human impossibility of Lucien’s utter lack of injury and what she had been taught was a fearsome faery weapon, it was a long moment in the frozen morning before Feyre smiled again.  
  
“He’d like to see metry,” She drawled, giving much more information that Lucien really wanted but- “ _You’re flame retardant?_ “  
  
Lucien laughed, but the warning bells hadn’t stopped. There was no one in their history who’d ever had the power Feyre did. Some things were universal to High Fae; instinct and strength, winnowing and healing, longevity and vengeance. But even a faery child born whose parents had mixed two court bloodlines, or grandparents, or great grandparents- it could happen for generations down, still the result would be the same. A favoring of one, maybe two Court’s vital skills.  
  
There were theories about how it worked. That the solar courts had more malleable, airy skill, but the elementals blood was more physically shaping.  
  
Lucien himself was not a good example.  
  
He’d taken the name Vanserra the second he could for a reason- he’d favored completely Sorcha’s skills from the cradle. There had always been talk along with it- Lucien who burned a little too bright, whose very name was light like his mothers.  
  
Remarks about his deeper skin, the shape of his mouth, and the height he grew into- so unlike his siblings.  
  
The last Vanserra heir. It was the savagery that saved him long enough to grow; had the Lady of Autumn’s whole family not been _slaughtered_? The male heirs had disappeared centuries before, the loss of all the rest to Hybern was a tragedy that bore the mark of Beron’s fingerprints.  
  
Of course Lucien would be unloved- _hated._ So different than Beron, than his brothers- yet still the most powerful son of all. A walking reminder of crimes and bloodshed, it made a very Autumn sort of sense.  
  
Lucien was a very Autumn-blessed faery.  
  
But that didn’t mean he didn’t receive a basic education on other Courts before his banishment. He was not fire _retardant-_ like calls to like. Too much an Autumn blaze to ever feel anything but it’s embrace; but sunfire would burn him. A ward twinged with Summer’s roaring heat could wound.  
  
He wasn’t the child of every Court like her- but he knew the _difference_.  
  
Lucien kept right on smiling, despite the peaked horror. How could she be ready for war?  
  
“Not inflammable,” He drawled right back, laid on an eye-roll whose familiarity brightened her smile, “Just Autumn born.”  
  
Liquid fast, Feyre reached out to tug on a long red tied braid in his hair, “I would have never guessed.”  
  
Could she smell Elain on the _ribbon?_  
  
Not letting the thought show, Lucien swatted at her playfully. He loved her- not like he loved Nesta, but affection all the same. Her youth _scared_ him. “So fires _so_ easy,” He asked, “Are you getting all the elements now?”  
  
Feyre started walking again, meandering toward the house as she talked. Fire and water, darkness and wind. Was it actually possible a drop of each court wasn’t enough to obtain their more esoteric skills?  
  
Or had she simply not learnt to access them?  
  
“-the hardened wind shielding is dead useful, not sure if it’s Day or Summer. The same with the light show, but I don’t know what it _does_ ”-  
  
“Light show?” Lucien interrupted.  
  
Feyre raised her eyebrows. “Sometimes when fire won’t come I get light instead, this kind of glow?”  
  
Summer Court light was weapon, she’d have known if she conjured it accidentally. But if it went along with _flame-_  
  
Lucien summoned a ball of flame. He didn’t need to hold it over his hand like a showman, but it would be better for his point. “Is all your fire red?”  
  
Feyre only made a face in response.  
  
He started slow, relying on the old adage that instinct would catch up once possibilities were realized. Red to orange, orange to gold, gold to peach and pink. Pink to the burning, seething white he carried around in his chest, the natural color of Lucien’s flames.  
  
Delight and determination shaped Feyre’s face, before she mimicked it perfectly.  
  
The white of the snowing, pristine world before had nothing, nothing, on the gleam and glow. It wa _s identical._ But, _but_ \- Lucien realized, flames gutting out, it wasn’t fire.  
  
Pure magic, the rise of the sun that fed the world. Feyre couldn’t tell what the light did, because she hadn’t let it loose on darkness. It was cleansing, hungry as his own flames.  
  
Daylight.  
  
Enchantment had always been Lucien’s specialty.  
  
Now that he let himself think it, the prospect that he’d never questioned was insane. His mother was a creature of blood and the Bone Forest- her spells were binding, clever. Had he ever seen her break one?  
  
Had her flames ever eaten magic, destruction tempering in a whole new shape?  
  
The fire of High Fae is not always, simply, fire.


	9. Fate and Fervor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feyre tells the truth, Rhysand does not, and Cassian finds what he's been looking for.

For the first time in five centuries, Cassian watched the sun rise over mortal lands.  
  
Raw as a new recruit he let the blizzards frigid wind breathe its secrets around him, nearly so cold as his mountain home. Pink and blue, the world superficially still in this hour before people began to move, but still here Cassian was, looking for _something_.  
  
Nothing he could name or place, but Cassian trusted his instincts above all else.  
  
There was something _here-  
_  
Not the something that resolved itself from the shadow of an open door to twist into the body of his brother, but the look on Azriel’s face gave agreement to Cassian’s wordless tension.  
  
Az ruffled his own hair, crossing the room in two strides and making a face that managed to silently convey he disagreed _strongly_ with Cassian’s need to have every single window- four, imported glass every one, this room alone worth more money than he wanted to think about- to lean on the other side of the threshold where Cassian sat, between propped open balcony doors.  
  
“Amren raided the hall of records- twelve Archeron generations.”

Cassian huffed a laugh. Six in the morning and Azriel already sounded exhausted by the surprises and sisterly infighting. “Can you believe she didn’t know? Fey _would_ think having royal blood didn’t matter.”  
  
His brother’s lips twitched. “It does explain a few things.”  
  
The wind twisted around them, silent to ears not Illyrian, _keened, keened keened-_ somewhere, some _thing_ , fire without flame. Cassian let his head thunk back against the door. Nothing here was as expected.  
  
Not just Feyre’s beloved and difficult sisters, or Lucien Vanserra in the heart of things, but this estate. Lavish, but-  
  
“You catch the double wardings?” Cassian asked.  
  
Azriel sighed. “Everywhere. This whole damned place is a blood magic deathtrap.” Respect was heavy in his tone, and Cassian could understand it. Lucien had to have brought himself to near death to put the wards in place. A Courts heir, high fae, bleeding out for two mortal girls.  
  
Illyrians also had a long history of protecting what they loved at any brutal cost.  
  
And here was a far more dangerous world than Feyre had described; not desperation and cold waiting for them, but magic and secrets in their place.  
  
“How’s the border?”  
  
Cassian sometimes forgot how remote Az could be in company. A messy youth of laughing when the other option was despair had grown into a silent expressiveness that still made Cassian grin.  
  
As he did now, watching Azriel’s whole face twist in a near-comical horror.  
  
“Blown to _shit_ ,” He ran a hand through his hair again, pulling on the curls. “No, Cas, it’s gone.”  
  
“Tamlin hasn’t?..”  
  
With perfect silence, Az stepped around the sprawl of Cassian’s body in the doorway, pointedly clipping one wing with his hip. He followed, snow immediately drifting in his hair, landing featherlight on Cassian’s bare shoulders. The view was uninterrupted by anything so spartan as walls or coverage, the house a defensive nightmare. Just long sloping lawns and gardens broken up by magic rich, absurdly dense patches of forest. He’d hide Illyrians in those trees, have to rely on surprises and traps.  
  
“Straight shot less than a league from here to Spring,” Az tilted his chin toward the dark and snowy forest, “Archeron land goes right to the Wall.”  
  
What had possessed humans to build, to _live,_ so close to the cursed thing?  
  
“The borders down, Feyre’s sisters have been here this whole time,” Cassian didn’t like the odds, half wanted to go over each of the sprawling, incomprehensible wards himself. It wasn’t, _couldn’t_ be safe here. “Is Tamlin that afraid of _Vanserra_?”  
  
Az shook his head. “He was dying, when he came here.” Cassian didn’t have to ask for explanation; secrets and history were the ken of Azriel in their every shape. “The magic at the border wasn’t a fight, he _shattered_ it. Walked on foot through the woods, burning so hot it went to the bedrock, stopped half dead there.” He pointed with one scarred hand to a snow-buried rose garden.  
  
“They saved him?”  
  
“Something happened,” Az replied, “Something _made_ him live.”  
  
Cassian recognized the tone, gave into the urge to drum fingertips on the iced over railing. “Something like being the son of a High Lord, or _something_ like Rhys keeping Feyre alive?”  
  
“I can’t tell,” Azriel admitted, with a grimace.  
  
The wind sang around them with that phantom scent of fire, something, _something_ just beyond reach. Cassian didn’t ask if Az could hear it too.

***

  
The breakfast room was a masterwork.  
  
After an hour of talking that turned to plans to slowly letting themselves be utterly savage at the _very_ idea, much less the reality of syrupy, utterly untrustworthy charming Rhysand, the eldest Archeron sister’s had come downstairs.  
  
The empty house benefitted them. No maids to watch and try to help as they hauled in new furniture, no footmen insisting they could carry the vast rug the sisters dragged in between them.  
  
No eyes to see where they stored the family secrets.  
  
Nesta rolled out the thick carpet with one hard kick of a dainty foot, and huffed. “If he lies to our faces I’m going to stab him.”  
  
Elain, comparing fine porcelain patterns with each hand, snickered. “Even if he does, Feyre will want to know _why._ ”  
  
“I think,” Nesta said, utterly even, “She’d believe his word over ours.”  
  
Elain didn’t throw down the plate, but she was later grateful this particular pattern, covered in silver stars and ever-blooming poison flowers like an alchemists eden, was charmed against breakage as it slid to the ground.  
  
Nesta was a perfectly straight pillar, staring down at the plush green and purple pattern beneath her feet. Trying to hide the full scope of her hurt, even from Elain. High walls and grace and _rage_ \- but underneath it the largest heart of them all.  
  
It had gone unspoken between them, that they’d silently imagined Feyre in their number again someday. The things they’d done- building her spaces in the house, signing her name for the Councils seal: a Lord Archeron might technically always be in legal charge, but it’s beneficiaries were his three, precious daughters.  
  
Nesta had made sure of that.  
  
Their father would never pass them the title- but everything else was _theirs:_ Feyre, Elain, Nesta, the last of their storied bloodline.  
  
A home, a place, a fortune. All Feyre’s whenever she should want it.  
  
Their land was dangerous too, growing more worrisome every day- but they’d missed their sister. They’d broken laws too numerous to count to stay safe and powerful, to maintain a corner of the world she might one day live in with them.  
  
Elain crossed the room to take her elder sister’s hand. The triplicate strand of pearls that lived on Elain’s wrist now that their home was full of fae had to have been cold, but Nesta didn’t flinch. “Feyre loves us,” Elain said, softly, “I don’t know what she wants now, but it had to have been her idea to bring the High Lord here.”  
  
“A reckless, stupid idea,” Nesta grumbled.  
  
Elain laughed, “ _So_ stupid it’ll probably get us killed. But she’s home.”  
  
The laugh was what made Nesta look up, her shining eyes so completely like their mother’s Elain savored the sight. She’d been taller, her blue grey gaze more metallic and the fine boned cheeks she’d blessed them all with more inclined to smile; but Nesta was utterly the child of their most beloved parent.  
  
“If we die, we’ll die together,” Nesta sighed. “Do you think that if you kill a High Lord you can really steal the power?”  
  
There was just enough dry humor in her voice for Elain to laugh again. “We could test it on Beron.”  
  
Nesta ran her hands down her skirt, flaring the fine faery velvet to shake off ash and dust. They’d dressed for conquest together, every inch rich merchants daughters. “We’ll be beat to it, I’d imagine.”  
  
They would be, Elain was sure. Sorcha, who deserved her revenge the very most, would have it. Already had in some way- stolen essential, ancient power, given Lucien back a part of his birthright Elain couldn’t fully comprehend. _  
_  
Nesta had spoken wryly, but the furrow between her eyes returned. They were thinking the same thing; wouldn’t say the Lady of Autumns name aloud in these spaces now shared with a Shadowsinger. Couldn’t speak to each other of what was to come even alone, in their newly invaded house.  
  
Like Elain, Nesta believed in an absolute form of justice.  
  
Beron _was_ going to die.  
  
Unbidden, lean brown lines returned to the forefront of her thoughts. Lucien’s clever hands- that Elain should _not_ be letting herself long for- riven with burns at the touch of that crown.  
  
Autumn-born, but cast out.  
 _  
Power._ A _c_ hance, revenge, the war to come- they had plans for it. Plans upon plans: for if they could hold the estate, for evacuation and weaponry. The three of them together took care of separate spheres, but Nesta held the most in her head.  
  
Elain didn’t wonder how far they’d have to go; there was no _too far_ , not to keep their family safe.  
  
Even if they had to be kept safe from the very people their sister had made a family of.

***

  
Cassian counted windows and clear views, walking on silent feet behind Feyre through her families home.  
  
Ever motion was a struggle, the third shift of his wings loud enough Azriel was looking at him. It wasn’t the luxury- not the quiet or beauty of this place putting him on edge. Not even the conflict- coming here was a _bad idea,_ and he knew it.  
  
Cassian didn’t even know what he was looking for.  
  
Until Feyre swung open yet another beautiful door, and Cassian stopped breathing.  
  
Bathed in bright morning light of a wall-sized window, Feyre’s sisters had beat them to breakfast. Arrayed in finery, at the head of the table sat Nesta, steaming porcelain cup in her hand so fine Cassian could see through it.  
  
How he made it from the doorway to the seat at her right hand was a dangerous proposition- Cassian didn’t _know_ how. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but the deep steadying breath was a mistake.  
  
The pearls in her hair alone were worth a fortune.  
  
He wanted to dismiss her beauty, the vanity as it juxtaposed with things Feyre had said. The sister whose heart was an ocean, vast but unconquerable. The same sister who hadn’t protected her.  
  
But Cassian was too much himself, too long a dearest friend to Mor to dismiss any woman based on appearance.  
  
Not braided in to show off the shining darkness of her hair, but affixed loose to the ends of pins like water drops. The pearls moved when she did, a chime through the still, tense air Cassian wasn’t sure anyone else could hear.  
  
It wasn’t a question he’d ask.  
  
Cassian _wanted_ \- he wanted to stop staring at her. Wanted her to look back at him so badly he’d bitten a hole in his cheek, the copper tang of blood not nearly enough to forget the _smell.  
_  
He wanted an excuse to get up from this lavish power play of a breakfast table, to have a reason to walk past her and catch Nesta Archeron’s scent.  
  
Velvet and pearls and ink- past that _, herself:_ fire, mixed with the cold tang of high mountain air.  
  
It was _intoxicating._ The ink she’d scrubbed from her hands didn’t show, but it complimented completely that raging smell, like a tundra forest fire. Cassian could tell too that she was armed- knives under that velvet dress, a stinging scent that could only mean ash wood somewhere on her person.  
  
The danger only increased his racing heart.  
  
And then Nesta Archeron turned her pale, perfect face on him. Impossible cheekbones, full lips, sharp jaw, keen eyes.  
  
“ _What_ ,” She snarled, “Do you think you’re looking at?”  
  
Her voice rang like a bell through his skull.  
  
Cassian was not High Fae. Not even low fae, really- Illyrian’s were so different as to be considered outsiders to even the rest. _Savages._ He’d never needed anyone to explain to him what _bullshit_ it was; but, Cassian was Illyrian to his bones, blooded and born of open skies.  
  
He _was_ different, and so was capable of realizing he was looking at a fellow threat.  
  
The ash was in her hair- pins? It had to be, had it been anywhere near her skin Cassian wouldn’t scent it the way he was now. The fire and iron of her rage and arms, growing stronger with the uptick of Nesta’s heart.  
  
It hit him all at once, the commonality of this entire spread.  
  
He couldn’t make himself look away, but there was something familiar even about the silk in Elain’s hair.  
  
Nesta was looking at him like she wanted to rip out his throat. _Beautiful_ \- the bones of her proud face were flawless as the pearls, paler even than their sheen.  
  
Cassian, still hearing her voice in the air, only to his ears, wanted to see how close he could push her to doing it.  
  
Her light gaze bobbed down to his lips for a scant second, and then out. _Look at me_ , Cassian thought, before realizing her furious eyes were following the line his wings made around his body. Black in this light, the scars hidden. Was she _measuring?  
_  
The out of body insanity he’d been feeling since he walked past her shouldn’t leave room for pride, but there is was, leaving Cassian light headed.  
  
If Nesta wanted to go for his throat, she’d have to touch him. Human- her teeth were like his, bruising, not faery pointed. Her _mouth_ -  
  
Like a door slammed shut in Cassian’s face, every bit of Nesta dismissed him, _every_ bit of her attention forward once more.  
  
She smelled like fire and every fine thing in the world- Cassian was burning.  
  
Distantly, he listened to Feyre snap something toward her oldest sister in offense, Elain’s sweet voice chiming in. In the distraction of the conversation he heard the rustle of Az’s wings, but Cassian ignored his brother’s subtle turn in question.  
  
Without permission or a conscious plan, Cassian leaned right over the table corner into Nesta’s space, like they were the only people in the room. “You know about Sangravah.”  
  
Nesta stopped speaking mid-sentence. Moved toward him, not away. This close, he could see the pulse beating in her throat, and fought not to stare like a madman. _Savage,_ Cassian thought again, with very different bitterness.  
  
“Do I know the Night Court was invaded, a city leveled, and within a day it’s High Lord showed up on my doorstep?” She hissed, meeting his gaze. “ _Yes._ ”  
  
Nesta had known, and she’d laid a trap. A brilliant jab, after Rhys’ speech about strength and the war to come. Everything in this room came from the North- imported china, but painted in the Rainbow. Night Court silver. Wall hangings, the kaleidoscopic silk of Elain’s clothes, the very rug beneath their feet: Sangravah.  
  
Cassian had seen with his own eyes the smoking ruin Hybern had left of half the city.  
  
“I had no idea the merchant network worked so quickly,” Rhysand drawled mildly, sipping tea like they were having a casual discussion.  
  
Cassian had the quicksilver thought of smashing his fist into his beloved brother, trusted High Lords face.  
  
The Archeron sisters were not going to be _handled_.  
  
But Nesta was still looking _right at him_. Cassian knew that expression on Illyrian faces- a predator that had smelled blood. She was good, too good. After all, he’d fought with Rhys for a full day about this particular direction: bringing danger to Feyre’s human family, taking the war over the Wall prematurely if things went sideways.  
  
They were her _sisters_ , it was ultimately her call. That didn’t mean he had to agree with it.  
  
How did Nesta know?  
  
“The families,” Nesta said, matter of fact and deadly, “Lost good sailors to the fires. When the stone burned, the water did too.” Feyre had opened her mouth in horror, but Nesta plowed on. “If we can’t keep people safe in _your_ land, what makes you think we could provide for you safe haven to hide from your war?”  
  
Cassian wanted to reach out and _touch_ her.  
  
“No one,” Rhysand said, “Is _hiding_.”  
  
Feyre leaned around his wings, mouth twisting. If she took note of the electric bubble of space Cassian had accidentally created and Nesta had taken over with sheer _rage,_ it didn’t show. “We’re sure father couldn’t have been on any of the ships? He wasn’t there when it happened, _right_?”  
  
They were so close a pearl hit Cassian’s nose as Nesta’s attention snapped left, the back of her braid stabbed through with a pin long enough to double as a dagger. A faery killing dagger, gleaming ash wood- Cassian couldn’t have backed away if the room were burning down around them.   
  
“Feyre,” It was Elain who sighed her name. Resplendent in pink and pearls of her own, she showing a whole different face than the woman who’d stabbed Azriel yesterday. “Father is not working the trade routes.”  
  
Feyre shook her head, already glancing back at Rhys, “Can we find out for sure? Send someone in case”-  
  
“He’s in the City of Gods,” Nesta said, flatly. “Or he was a year ago, getting arrested for gambling debts. I doubt he got much further.”  
  
Feyre’s face crumbled. A scream would have drawn Rhy’s attention less quickly, and Cassian himself hated to see her hurt, but he was busy struggling to breathe. If he’d been less close the sorrow that emanated from Nesta would have been hidden. Anger was one thing, an unholy terror in her rage, _but_ -  
  
But the urge to rip apart whatever had hurt Nesta was _overwhelming_. It rattled in his veins, terrifying to even himself. _What was wrong with him?_  
  
“I’ll find your father, wherever he is,” Rhys promised Feyre is a low voice. She leaned into the touch of his hand, blue eyes over-bright.  
  
Late, too late, Cassian caught Elain watching him. He knew she was armed too, under all that silken beauty. She was _softer_ than her sisters, a gentle ghost in Feyre’s stories. Giant eyes and winsome dimples seemed to only reinforce that vision- but she’d stabbed Azriel. Loved and absolutely trusted from her every gesture one of the most dangerous unaligned faeries in Prythian.  
  
Twisted her face in an expression of total wickedness that belonged on Feyre’s face to raise brows at Cassian- at the lack of space between him and Nesta.  
  
Cassian sat back in his chair, clenched hands hidden by the table.  
  
Not fast enough to miss the impossibly quiet rattled sound of a breath leaving Nesta when he moved. Not a bit of it showed on her face- for all that Cassian could smell sadness, a cool unmovable rage, beautiful to see, was all that reached the world.  
  
A queen, riven of ice and pearl.  
  
The next youngest might have been flounced like a princess, but Cassian couldn’t imagine she wasn’t just as controlled. Courtier and queen then- quick poison and vengeful crusade, hand in hand. Feyre had failed, on a cataclysmic level, to describe her elder sisters.  
  
They should have seen it coming- an impossibly young human woman who’d freed them from _Amarantha._ She’d come from somewhere, for all that most days she seemed more like a sister, a friend.  
  
Instinctive deep breath burned his lungs with Nesta’s scent all over again.  
 _  
If he pulled on that murderous dagger, would the whole thing unwind?  
_  
He wanted with a stark insanity to know how long her dark hair was. Could he fill both hands with its softness, breathe her in like shelter?  
  
Cassian hadn’t missed it when he’d scooped her out of the fight the day before. But her fear had clouded everything- a fear of him so complete and overwhelming he’d felt sick- left no room for the wildness that pounded his skin- and then of course, all he’d smelled was his own blood.  
  
“Fey,” Began Elain, her deceptively soft voice carrying, “Father has made it clear he doesn’t want to be involved. We can send sailors to check on him, but it would be easier to plan if you told us why you’re here.”  
  
He wondered how old they were. From Feyre’s stories, Cassian had been sure Elain was the youngest. But old enough to wed- old enough to be entangled with Lucien bloody Vanserra- and Nesta was clearly an adult in her prime.  
  
The Cauldron-gifted savior of Prythian was the _baby_ of the family.  
  
And making a guiless younger sibling face that made the long-scarred wounds where Asteria had lived ache. “I wanted to make sure you were alright.”  
  
“ _Bullshit_ ,” Nesta snapped.  
  
Cassian bit his cheek again to stay silent, mouth twisting without his permission. She was a _nightmare_ \- a beautiful nightmare that wasn’t going to let this already messy plan come together without a fight.  
  
A small noise had escaped Elain- not even censure, tiredness? Before the two older- he was sure of it- Archeron’s were meeting eyes in a silent understanding that scrunched Feyre’s face into a scowl.  
  
“You _both_ think that?”  
  
That they exchanged glances once more before Elain tried again was enough to audibly set Feyre’s teeth.  
  
“You can always come home,” Elain told her, staring down the table with its gleaming crystal and porcelain, utterly sincere. “You have a place here with us, no matter what, Feyre. But”-  
  
Nesta interrupted, hurt buried from her voice but not Cassian’s senses, throat burning at her pain. “You let us think you were _dead_. If not for Lucien, we would have no idea what happened to you.”  
  
“And,” Elain went on, like Feyre didn’t look like she’d been slapped, like Rhysand wasn’t staring at Nesta with a thunderous, barely contained danger, “We understand these are very dangerous times.”  
  
It was all _wrong_ \- Cassian had fought against this plan on the basis that mortals over the Wall killed faeries, killed those who associated with them. It was still the greatest danger here, but how thoroughly had they misunderstood what they were walking into?  
  
These women were already involved in their own way, all the more in peril because of it; they weren’t going to be able to contain this situation, they were only going to make it worse.  
 _  
Cassian_ was going to make it worse if he didn’t get a hold of himself, if Rhys kept looking at Nesta like that.  
  
It was an effort to be still, to stay silent. Every instinct in Cassian’s body was telling him to _move_ : to reach out and find some way to soothe that raging pain in Nesta Archeron, who he’d known all of a day, to put himself bodily between the bright flame of her mortal beauty and the anger of a High Lord.  
 _  
His brother-_ who would _never-  
_  
Despite the overwhelming tension in the air, Feyre scoffed. “How did _Lucien_ know I was alright?”  
  
Trapped at the corner of table Cassian got the full view of Elain’s eye twitching before her whole face smoothed.  
  
Nesta had no such compunctions. “I believe he was somewhat aware of whatever has put that crown on your head.”  
  
Moonstone today- like a distant echo to Nesta’s shower of pearls. Cassian knew damn well what Rhysand was doing, giving his emissary a crown, but Feyre _didn’t_. Equal parts marveled and self-conscious at the splendor, she’d refused- not ready or too stubborn, he didn’t know- to look at Rhys’s affection for what it might be.  
  
With a long, slow breath, Rhys finally set down his tea cup. “We’re not here for refuge. The tragedy at Sangravah was not the first attack, nor will it be the last. We need to call on old alliances if anyone is going to survive.”  
  
Silken- _not gentle,_ there was the voice of the woman who could love the lost heir of Autumn- Elain breathed, “Human alliances?”  
  
Feyre nodded, and Cassian wished there were some way to stop her before she went on, painfully earnest. “I’m the Emissary of the Night Court, I need to speak to the Council of Queens. If they’ll listen, _help_ , we all might have a chance. _Hybern won’t stop_ ”-  
  
No one had to explain further, as Cassian imagined few people ever did speaking to Nesta. The look on her face had been icy, now she might as well have breathed frost. “And you’re High Fae, so you cannot set foot in the sacred palace. You want to bring the _Council of Queens_ here?”  
  
Breaking his silence with clear regret already on his face, it was Azriel that answered. “We have been unable to infiltrate the council. It’s a deathtrap, to our kind. It might only be safe to engage here, on mortal land.”  
  
“It’s a deathtrap for a _reason_ ”-  
  
“Hybern,” Rhys cut in smoothly, “Has been preparing for this war for millennia. The king aims to take this entire continent, and there will be nothing to stop his march into mortal countries. If we cannot band together now, we’ll fall, one by one.”  
  
“No,” Nesta growled, a nearly-faery noise. “ _No_. Hybern has declared war on the Night Court, I will not let you bring that violence south.”  
  
“It’s the only safe way,” Feyre said, voice cutting. “I just need your house, just for a few days. The message is sent. But we should plan together. We’ll keep you out it, keep you safe, Rhys can”-  
  
Not Nesta, who’d stood from the table to yell all the better, but Elain, her pale cheeks drained of color who didn’t let her younger sister finish. “What do you mean, the message has been sent?”  
 _  
Feyre,_ Cassian thought, _you didn’t.  
_  
One hand on Rhysand’s forearm, Feyre raised her chin. “I invited the Queens here. We don’t have time to argue, they’ll have the message by nightfall.”

***

  
Elain had told herself not to be surprised by her younger sister’s actions anymore.  
  
One High Lord, two High Lords- _the Lord of Nightmares and Shadows_ \- breaking a curse older than all of them, fighting monsters, being reborn.  
  
Nothing had truly disappointed her before this moment. Feyre, who wanted so badly to do the right thing, who was trying to protect her new family: but who would protect them? Their vassals, their land, the fragile, infinitely valuable legacy of their blood that Elain and Nesta had lied and committed treason to hold onto?  
  
She’d been right- Nesta had been right.  
  
There were a hundred moving pieces before them: the household staff, who’d return in a day, if that when the blizzard ended. Their vassals relying on them- the extra gold and food they provided in winter, the orphanage full of children who had no idea how dangerous or precarious their world was. The Crown of Autumn in a _hatbox,_ the slight of hand involved to keep their ships sailing and their goods sold.  
  
Her engagement ball, the invitations sent. Lucien’s safety, Sorcha’s plan. That the war starting might be here- that those battles wouldn’t have a chance to kill them if the Queens decided to take their lives themselves, as was their legal due.  
  
Elain needed to _breathe._ To think.  
  
All she could do was look at her sister- not Feyre, not now- at Nesta, and understand the sorrow, the _anger_ that spooled between them.  
  
Trapped, once again, by someone else's choices.   
  
Elain didn’t realize she’d risen until her skirt snagged on the chair, stopping her progress to Nesta’s side for a split second before the dark-eyed shadowsinger to her left freed it with an inclined head.  
  
Later, she would think about how this court- family, so clearly a family- didn’t seem to agree either.  
  
But first she rounded the corner to take Nesta’s hand. Shoulder to shoulder, they wouldn’t flinch.  
 _  
She wanted Lucien.  
_  
Colder than the ice gathered at the windows, Nesta’s voice was clipped. “You invited the entire Council of Queens to meet the _High Lord of the Night Court,_ under our roof?”  
  
Before Feyre could answer the hulking Illyrian who had been staring at Nesta like she were some doomed miracle interrupted with that whiskey warm voice of his, “ _Feyre,_ you didn’t ask?”  
  
Nesta didn’t look at him, didn’t move her focus from the High Lord whose unnatural gaze was on them both, but Elain felt her hand, hidden by their skirts, spasm.  
  
Humans had told stories of his kind for generations. The true of heart, warriors whose honor was life, whose promises were magic, who protected the innocent at all costs. Myths, surely, but this was the Commander of the Legions.  
  
Honor was perhaps something they could lean on.  
  
“We don’t have time to fight,” Feyre insisted, a transparent lack of understanding on her face, “Hyberns next attack could come at any time. _I_ can do this, _we_ can do this.”  
  
Smoothly, the Lord who they feared even across the sea nodded, spread his hands in a very human gesture of compliancy, wrong to behold. “I know that you don’t trust me, don’t know me. But please believe I won’t allow any harm to come to Feyre’s family.”  
  
Feyre’s family- their fates bound together inescapably.  
  
Elain had had more than enough assurance for one morning.  
  
She didn’t need to look to know Nesta felt the same, to guess from her thrown back shoulders and rigid body that Nesta wanted nothing more than to be out of this room. Time to think, to plan, to be alone- but she wouldn’t, couldn’t back down from the fight.  
  
And Rhysand wasn’t done.  
  
“We’ll shore up your defenses, guard your home for as long as needed. Feyre’s letter is the first real message we’ve gotten to the Queens, but our interests align. We”-  
  
Elain shook out the heavy woven silk of her skirts, rainbow shimmer settling under her steady hands. Ignoring the whole lot of them- winged warriors, Feyre’s confusion, Rhysand’s false straightforwardness, she turned to Nesta. “Tea?”  
  
Nesta cocked her head, in step, the graces that served them again and again. “Of course, I’ll see you this evening.”  
  
Time then, she needed time as well. And long enough for them to wait for Lucien.  
  
Elain addressed the room at large, like Rhysand hadn’t spoken. “Please do enjoy the comforts of our home. The kitchens are stocked, if not staffed, and the library is down the hall. You’ll find extra clothing in the scullery and more firewood in the closets of all the greatrooms. Avail yourselves to whatever you need, we’ll see you tomorrow.”  
 _  
“Elain_ ”-  
  
Nesta made it to the door first, holding it open for them both before the satisfactory slam rocked the entire wall.  
  
In low tones, Nesta asked as they reached the stairs, “Do you know where Lucien is?”  
  
Elain shook her head, “He was talking about checking on the outlying farms.”  
  
Nesta sighed, on the step above as they’d been braced to head in opposite directions. “Later,” she said again, reaching out quicksilver fast to squeeze Elain’s hand again. “We’ll figure it out.”  
  
She managed to smile in return before stumbling down the stairs, fast enough to trip. It was longer way outside, down twisting marble and across the grander spaces of the house, but Elain still managed to pull on her fur cloak and step out into the crisp, bright world before she had company.  
  
She strode into the snow regardless, ducking around the house on slick stone paths, cold clear air her greatest companion.  
  
“ _Elain,_ ” It was Feyre, of course.  
  
For a half moment, Elain contemplated just ignoring her. When they were children, truly young, the only thing that made Feyre angry was to lack for attention. It wasn’t normally a problem; even at their most desperate, their father had affection to spare for his youngest, precious daughter.  
  
It would be almost fair, she’d ignored their qualms, the very circumstances of their lives.  
  
But no, Elain was better than that. No matter what, she’d missed her sister and there were things that had to be said.  
  
“Elain,” Called Feyre again, sliding into step beside her on those longer faery legs that Elain couldn’t get used to. Always gangly, little Fey now moved with perfect, silent grace. “You can’t refuse to plan with Rhys because of the letter. We need the Queens to”-  
  
Gently, gentle as she could manage, Elain interrupted. “The problem isn’t Rhysand,” She said, trying and hoping Feyre would actually listen. If Nesta had this talk with her, it was going to end with screaming. “You wrote that letter, Feyre.”  
  
Familiar and still utterly different blue faery eyes blinked widely a her. “I was,” She stumbled over the words, “I _was_ a human and now I’m fae, and the Emissary of the Night Court. The best choice to write to the Queens.”  
  
Five steps from the haven of her solarium, Elain stopped walking. “ _Feyre_ ,” She said again, and this time she couldn’t hold back the anger in her voice. “You wrote the letter. You signed it with your own name too, didn’t you?”  
  
Feyre stopped too, set her feet wide and stubborn.  
  
Through the glass, Elain could see her orchids blooming. If she made it to those doors, there’d be no Night Court. Just soil and moss only she’d ever touched. Potted lemons blooming, the air warm and moist, some actual damned _quiet-_ but she had to have this talk.  
  
Elain sighed. “Rhysand, none of them know any humans. Not in recent history, anyway,” Feyre opened her mouth as if in protest, but Elain held up a hand, “You grew up here. You know the punishment for associating with faeries in this land is _death_ , Feyre.”  
  
No one cared the original Archeron fortune had been built on the back of wrangling a deal with a faery smith. That even now, Nesta, under the auspice of their father’s authority, kept faery bargains on the continent.  
  
What mattered was this: the wild land along the Wall had no ruler. It belonged personally to the Council of Queens, but with true governance more than an ocean away, human lords- whose estates might as well have been tiny kingdoms, for their absolute power- had to keep the peace. Faeries came over the Wall- not faeries of the continent, whose gated kingdoms and vast reaches had always interacted with humans in some way- but faeries of Prythian who played by different rules.  
  
Killing. Stealing maidens in the night. Hunting humans like prey.  
  
So the highest echelon of Lords, Flatha and Tiarna, petitioned the Queens they traced their own bloodlines back to and it was written into law: death, usually at the hands of your very own liege, at the word of your neighbors.  
  
Human slow, Feyre touched Elain’s arm. “The meeting will stay secret,” She told her, wide eyes sincere, “There will be Illyrian’s to guard if anything goes wrong, and Rhys will keep you and Nesta safe.”  
  
Lucien, markedly, was not included in the count to be protected.  
  
All at once, Elain was exhausted. She didn’t _want_ to be angry. Not at her naive and beautiful sister, all of nineteen years old, who’d fought and died and been transformed. Little Feyre, a true hero, who’d always had a good heart.  
  
Tired too, that for all that goodness, Feyre really thought Elain was afraid for herself.  
  
“You signed it _Archeron_ ,” Elain snapped before she could stop herself. “Just because father bankrupted all of us doesn’t mean he ever stopped being a lord. _Ua Flaithbertaig,_ Feyre. These people lived without a leigelord for a generation, we’ve only begun to fix things. _They_ will be punished, _we will be punished._ ”  
  
“When the Queens meet with us, they won’t punish you for being present.” Feyre said lowly.  
  
“ _If_ they meet with you, Feyre!” Elain found herself shouting and stopped, breathing out her nose. She’d been wrong; maybe Nesta should have had this conversation- maybe she’d have been sharp enough for Feyre to take her seriously.  
  
“Nesta is not Banfhlaith, Fey,” Elain tried very hard to say evenly. “She can’t petition for clemency from the other Houses. Lucien is living under a false identity- there’s no one to protect us, no one who can intervene.”  
  
“But Rhys,”-  
  
Not for the first time, something prickled in Elain’s palms at the sound of Feyre’s familiarity with the High Lord of the Night Court. There was more there than a bargain, whatever that binding tattoo meant. Feyre _loved_ him. Elain knew she didn’t mean harm, wanted to trust her sisters new friends- but that was just it.  
  
They were new- foreign and horrifically powerful. Good intentions wouldn’t protect human lives in a violent game that had spanned centuries.  
  
“Rhysand,” Elain managed to say normally, calmly even, “Is not going to stop a war with an enemy that held him captive for a half a century to protect three hundred human vassals who have nothing to do with the conflict.”  
  
The stubborn set of Feyre’s stance had become kinetic with anger. “ _Nothing_?” She shouted back, flawless immortal hands flung into the air, “War is coming. People are going to die, Elain. During the last war”-  
  
She sounded just like Nesta, when she was angry. But then again, Nesta never talked down to Elain. “The last war was almost _six hundred years ago_ ,” Elain snarled back. “The Queens hate the High Lords, Feyre. Our country is allied with the faeries of the continent, humans live in the Glass Mountains, go to university in the Weeping City- the world has _changed_.”  
  
“The world changes, but you don’t, right?” Feyre said, brittle with anger. “You have Tamlin’s riches, so you get to play lady again.”  
  
Elain had a hundred reasons Feyre was wrong- that without a leigelord, an Archeron in power, their people had _nothing_. Bound to their ancestral land without protection. No divorces, no founding of new institutions, they couldn’t even pick new crops to grow on estate land without their lords word. With their father out of power, they were trapped- and forced to pay the crown tax individually, more than twice what the estate under Elain and Nesta took.  
  
The fiefdoms of their slip of human land weren’t fair- but the sisters were lucky enough the Queens had never awarded the ancestral Archeron lands to anyone else. Their father might not have given a damn, but the least they could do was try to make things better.  
  
But none of that came out of her mouth as her sister kept speaking. “What’s the plan? Say the war never comes. What, you’re really going to marry Lucien? Lie to everyone. Let him pretend to be your human husband for a hundred years until you _die_?”  
  
When Nesta was younger, she used to panic. It would crash over her, hold her fast in it’s grip- she told Elain it was like a vise in her chest, all the time, but sometimes it squeezed so tight she couldn’t breathe. The world went white.  
  
Elain had promised her to help hide it- for Feyre to never see- but she’d vowed to herself to find a way to hold Nesta’s hand when the world tried to crush her.  
  
The world was white now.  
  
“Get out.” Elain said, colorless.  
  
Surprise visibly interrupted Feyre’s anger. “What?”  
  
Elain didn’t pause to say it again. She started walking, those last five steps strangely light, as though the ground were further away. But two of her steps was one of her sisters now.  
  
“Elain,”-  
  
“No,” Elain said, refusing to look up, lest Feyre see her burning eyes. She _wasn’t_ going to cry. “What’s done is done. Whatever danger is coming, I’m not going to face it having slapped my own baby sister.”  
  
The brightness of the icy day dazzling her eyes, Elain lurched away and into those safe glass walls. Humid heat and the smell of smoke hiding behind green growing things wrapped around her like an embrace. Lucien had laid some magic over this place, kept her plants safer even than the expensive glass provided.  
 _  
I’ll have to thank him,_ Elain thought, the orchids lush before her.  
  
But she passed their shelves, went all the way to that back until she was screened from the outside world by potted palms, and sank to the stone floor.  
  
Twenty five.  
  
Elain was twenty five years old- how long would it be before she looked older than Lucien? Three years, six years, ten years? How could she know how things would progress?  
  
He’d never mentioned leaving. Seemed, not just as his human guise, but in those quiet moments that were Lucien and nothing else, to perhaps love the land the same way she did. He might change his glamour with time- human faces change- but Elain knew the real ageless beauty. He _belonged_ here with them.  
  
She didn’t know how she would change.  
  
They had to survive- it wasn’t all a lie, hadn’t ever been, and maybe, maybe, if they lived, Elain would make sure Lucien knew it.

***

  
Despite the moonless night, Cassian found Nesta Archeron outside.  
  
He’d resisted all of ten hours.  
  
He shouldn’t have gone looking for her. That he knew- there was no way she’d come out into a dark and frozen night for company. In fact, Cassian wasn’t sure Nesta liked _anyone’s_ company.  
  
But he couldn’t talk himself into staying away, anymore than he could get her burning scent off the back of his tongue. Like something had possessed him, Cassian couldn’t stop tasting it on the air. Even in the sky overhead, his lungs burned with mountain cold and raging fire.  
 _  
Like home.  
_  
Nesta didn’t make sense to him.  
  
The older sister who’d failed to protect Feyre. The wrathful pillar of ice ready to challenge a _High Lord without a trace of fear._ The woman who seemed determined to go down fighting- not just for her sisters- but for every single human in these lands.  
  
The spitfire who’d broken his noise, and come back for more.  
  
She looked at him like he was dirt beneath her boots- _and Cassian couldn’t stop thinking about her._  
  
So like the Cauldron damned masochist he was, Cassian found himself waiting in a dead garden, struck dumb by the play of false firelight over her relentlessly beautiful face.  
  
Magic- of course- Vanserra’s raw power intermingled so deeply into the Archeron’s land that it was beginning to take on small characteristics of faerie. Will-o-whisps were old Autumn magic- and inclined to lead mortals and faeries alike to their death in their original form. Those bouncing around the Archeron’s dormant garden seemed more interested in the roses.  
  
Or perhaps the woman sitting beside them.  
  
“Is it common Night Court manners to sulk in the dark?” Nesta asked, back to Cassian as she faced the sky.  
  
“It’s not a good time to be alone at night.”  
  
Nesta remained silent. The will-o-whisps drifted closer, painting red over the old gold of her hair. Cassian fought the urge to smack one away from her fragile mortal form.  
  
An itch was starting his veins- familiar dismissal in her silence that seemed to reach right down inside him. What was Cassian _doing?_ This woman didn’t need- or _want_ his attention. Cassian liked fighting, but that didn’t mean he needed to take a few extra kicks to the ribs.  
  
He was just rocking back, silent even on the frosted ground, when Nesta turned to look up at him.  
  
One eyebrow rose. Cassian fought the urge to tuck his wings tight and shift, to lessened the impact of his sheer size standing over her. He settled for crossing his arms.  
  
And there was the other eyebrow, _gods damn him_.  
  
Her voice had razor edges. “Why hasn’t your High Lord told my sister they’re mates?” _High Lord_ rolled out of her mouth like a curse, briefly catching him before Cassian caught up with her words. _What?  
_  
“What?”  
  
It wasn’t that Cassian hadn’t guessed the same thing. It wasn’t even that the rarity or the impossibility- the ten thousand childhood stories that clenched beneath his sternum to damn him with the very word _mates_ \- but Nesta had known Rhys for two cauldron damned days.  
  
“It effects her just as much, Feyre should know why there’s a crown on her head.” Nesta had continued.  
  
Something about her- gods, that _face-_ the sharp tilt of chin, that she still hadn’t bothered to rise, the unremitting aggression in her tone that left no quarter- boiled the blood in his veins like this was a spar he’d have to fight to win. The battles he actually remembered.  
  
She looked even better without the gems and pageantry. A sword unsheathed, ready for devastation.  
  
“You don’t,” Cassian began, locking on eyes whose color he’d lost in the dark. “Get between a male and his mate. You won’t like the consequences.”  
  
That had Nesta shooting to her feet. _Blue-_ her eyes were blue. Cassian could see it in the will-o-whisp fire now; lighter than Feyre’s, dawn rather than high noon. He’d been closer to her this morning. Now, alone, it was a world of difference to breathe the same air.  
  
“I wouldn’t want to be between _Rhysand_ and anything,” Nesta spat, face up to meet him, “But Feyre deserves to know.”  
 _  
How was she so small?_ Petite- Cassian couldn’t call her delicate with that gaze that wanted to set him on fire. But she barely, _hardly_ , came up to his shoulder, and that didn’t seemed to concern Nesta one bit. She’d stepped right into his space. Aggression- not violence- _dominance_. Nesta Archeron fought like a faery.  
  
No, _a gods damned Illyrian_. _  
  
“_ They’re not”- Cassian tried to say, but Nesta cut him off.  
  
“Am I wrong?”  
  
Horribly, suddenly, all Cassian wanted to do was laugh. She wasn’t wrong at all, and he’d bet his entire fortune she rarely ever was. He swallowed it down to a smile, but Nesta saw enough for her eyebrows to spike high once more.  
  
“Mates are rare beyond measure,” Cassian said, before she could interrupt. “But it’s not instant. Permanent, but the bond takes time to snap into place.”  
  
Time to _find,_ if you were Illyrian, equal parts damned and lucky as he was.  
  
Her quick, clever eyes were following the gesture of his hands- Cassian was grateful for half a heartbeat before he paused, and that beautiful gaze was back on his face.  
  
“If- _if-_ Rhys is feeling the bond, but it hasn’t snapped into place for Feyre, then he’s probably trying to give her time.” Nothing about Nesta’s face changed, but the tilt of her head leveled. “Mate bonds aren’t- they’re resolute, completely.”  
  
Cassian didn’t have the words- or the desire to tell Nesta- that he thought Rhys was being an idiot. That Feyre needed all the information to choose. But he could also understand his oldest friends fear. Rhysand would take the rejection, no matter what, no matter what it did to him. He had only feeling, not the song on the wind to lead him. “And this is really none of our business.“  
  
And Nesta _laughed_. “When she finds out in the middle of a war zone and tries to throttle him, it’ll be our business.”  
  
Again, Cassian agreed with her. He’d didn’t think it would be a real rejection- anyone with eyes could see how in love they were falling. Gods, he’d had to live with it, both of them set off like sparks every time the other entered a room.  
  
Feyre was going to be _furious_ at being kept in the dark.  
  
But he couldn’t admit that.

“Is violence how all human women show their affection?” Cassian found himself drawling. He’d leaned down into her space again without realizing it. The fast beat of her heart- ash still bound in her hair- the light of her eyes- Cassian could take an awful lot of violence. She smelled like a _storm._ “Or is Vanserra just that lucky?”  
  
Not just a storm- _lightening_ , as her eyes flashed. Cassian wanted to take back the words immediately, but some stupid impulse kept him frozen. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips, in his wings.  
  
For all that Cassian was drowning in the sweep of rage like so much heavenly fire that had driven him from skies time and and time again, Nesta smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know, General?”  
  
She turned without another word and swept away, will-o-whisps following, to leave Cassian in the dark that rang with her voice.  
  
His hands were shaking. _What was the gods damned point_?


	10. Tempest and Fealty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nesta makes her choice.

Nesta did not actually hide from her baby sister in her office.  
  
After storming a floor higher to her bedroom and ripping the sleeves back off her dress, she went down staircase after staircase, through the kitchen and deeper still into the subterranean wine cellar. They were a common enough feature in noble houses, once this very one had been famous at the height of her great-great grandfathers empire.  
  
In her father’s time, it had been stripped, like everything of what had once been the ancient Archeron estate.  
  
Elain and Nesta had rebuilt. Before Feyre had come back the first time, they’d walked the wreckage of the foundations- the very roof beams and tiles, marble and garden pavers sold in the face of their father’s debt- and tried to remember.  
  
It took an entire day. But the end of which they’d ended up here; the cellar only intact because some particularly ostentatious ancestor of their’s decided to embed great unruly _boulders_ of semi- precious stone to make the walls and floor, too big to be ripped apart without causing a collapse.  
  
A lantern between them and a sheath of paper holding their futures, they’d sat together on a slab of lapis with the absurdly fine bottle of red Elain had somehow found buried.  
  
Half a bottle passed between them to discuss the house, the debts, the future.  
  
The second half to worry if Feyre was alright, if this was _really happening_ , what they could do.  
  
Half hysteric with relief, half mourning, an accidentally flailed hand- and they’d found this place: a second cellar, another flight of stairs down, a room of blue stone walls and hidden treasure. Archeron heirlooms, their father’s seal secreted away.  
  
They’d starved and froze and been cast out- Lord Archeron had protected his inheritance all the while.  
  
Nesta could have killed him with her bare hands.  
  
Now, organized and cleaned, Elain and Nesta had spent the last year adding to the trove of family secrets. Every book on magic they could find that Lucien could vaguely verify made sense. A vault of ash wood and faebane imported from the continent, safely locked away. Treasure that they had yet to liquidate or couldn’t because of its magical properties.  
  
Her first step on the cool floor and magic kindled in lamps, golden fire born of Lucien’s hands blooming overhead to light her way. Wrapped one of the coats by the door around her, skirting past the tables of Elain’s hand-distilled floral poisons and Lucien’s weapons, to stop before her war map.  
  
Seven generations of Archeron’s had traded with the continent. Twelve with the Night Court’s secret city and the rest of Prythian’s ports.  
  
Nesta had the blood of explorers and shrewd men and in women in her veins. As far back as their history could stretch recorded, not one Archeron had ever lost a ship, before her father.  
  
That was what happened, after all, when innocent faery blood was spilled by hands bound to magic: _ruin._  
  
Ruin that just kept chasing them.  
  
None of the sister’s ships had gone down in this magic-teeming seas that could sense a promise broken. A loophole, that they were their dead mother’s daughters? Or was the legend Nesta had been told only half the story? It had made sense, a merchant’s promise bound immortal in singing steel and fresh seethed gold, protection of the exchange.  
  
Or was the curse vaster, not so simple?  
  
She so damned tired. 

Her sleep made nightmares by a life impossible, northern peaks that lived behind her eyes. Elain had the crown of Autumn in a hatbox, ready to wage war. Feyre believed so wholly in the man she loved- _who’d kidnapped her, lied to her, was lying to her right now, a crown on her head-_ that she’d bet on all their lives and those of everyone they knew.  
  
Vassals. Children. Farmer’s who’d _wept_ when Elain and Nesta returned and tried to right the poverty their father had left them in.  
  
Feyre and Rhysand could burn in hell, as far as Nesta was currently concerned. She had twenty orphans and an entire estate to save. _  
_  
She’d work until she couldn’t breathe. Meet Elain and Lucien for a meal under six layers of warding to meld information and plans until the three of them were cataclysm enough to survive.  
  
She wouldn’t live a thousand years- _wouldn’t fall through those haunting mountain skies_ \- but Nesta Archeron would be damned if she died now, with the world just in reach.

***

“ _Cassian_.”  
  
His first thought was that he was dying. Blinking in the dark and coming awake all at once as a hundred years of training had taught him, Cassian’s brain moved straight on to the certainty he was _dead,_ seeing Nesta Archeron leaning over his bed.  
  
Maybe she was here to slit his throat for daring infringe upon her honor.  
  
Cassian rolled to land on his feet, knife in hand in less than a one frantic beat of his heart. “We’re under attack?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Nesta hissed, before swearing softly. In the moment it took his body to catch up with his brain and lower the dagger, Cassian realized she was fully dressed- the same heart-rending dress as in the garden- a coat around her shoulders, and staring pointedly somewhere in the region of his right shoulder.  
  
“Why aren’t you wearing _anything_?”  
  
The only positive in the humiliation was that for some reason Azriel wasn’t here in the room they were sharing to witness it.  
  
Scrambling into a shirt and pants to the background noise of her gritted teeth, Cassian sent a silent prayer to whatever god was listening. Wind and sky, moon and mother. “ _Well_ , you see, sometimes even faeries sleep.” He turned in time to see her scoff, faint color high on her cheeks. “Something you should try.”  
  
Nesta only scowled. “I _sleep_. Now come on, I need you.”  
  
Because Cassian was insane, because those exact words in any tone from Nesta Archeron could have brought him to his knees, Cassian followed her out of the room and into the dreaming house.  
  
They made it three flights and across a ballroom before he found himself trying again, stupidly softened by the late hour and unable to stop himself. It didn’t matter that Nesta’s straight spine gave nothing away, every taut muscle in her neck and down those graceful shoulders screamed the kind of fatigue that a mortal couldn’t just shake off. “You’re exhausted. We”-  
  
She stopped so suddenly he almost ran into her. “ _I_ have things to do. Are you going to help me or not?” _  
_  
Would Cassian somehow find himself alone in the dark with her every night he spent in this house? Her beautiful, furious face haunting him? Bright moon knew he was defenseless against her, fire and flame burning his throat.  
  
“Or course I am,” Cassian heard himself say, tone too rough and true to meet her frustration unwounded.  
  
It took a her full second to nod, staring up at him like she could see through the dark.  
  
She led him down and down, out of view of the starry sky, through kitchens and storage, long servants halls and winding steps. Down and down into the growing cold, her determined steps echoing over stone.  
  
Quieter, a knife slid between ribs instead of a battlecry, she asked in a wine cellar, the scent of bottled summer all around them, “How can you tell?”  
 _  
Because your eyes are the sky and your voice the wind_. “I can smell how weary you are.”  
  
She didn’t respond.  
  
Like it was nothing at all, making precise movements in the near cave darkness Nesta pressed on the rock wall and then like magic, like a mystery that Cassian wanted to know every single detail of, stairs appeared down into the bedrock bellow.  
  
Nesta stepped into the yawning blackness without a backwards glance.  
  
Cassian followed.  
  
“Not that good,” She was grumbling, voice echoing in the narrow space, “Lucien would never stop if”-  
  
“I’m not High Fae,” Cassian interrupted. _Look at me_ , he thought, heart beating a bruise in his chest. He wanted to know if he’d dreamt the shape of his name in her mouth, how her voice would sound now that he was awake.  
  
He wanted her to grumble his name with that same unspeakable familiarity that said knowing, _belonging_.  
  
Which was _insane_. Two sunrises, and Cassian was desperate to _know_ her.  
  
The moment she reached the bottom of the stairs, light flared around them, revealing a large room and more of Nesta Archeron’s secrets.  
  
They assaulted him on all sides: faebane and ash wood, foxglove and monkshood, enough faery-smithed swords for a small invasion. Cassian ran a hand over the smooth wood of a table covered in poisons, their stinging scent a refuge from the sheer intoxication of Nesta’s presence.  
  
A menace with an _armory._  
  
Cassian was going to send for better weapons the moment the sun actually rose. Too many jewels- too much weak Spring make to be reliable- Illyrian steel could cut the very air. He wondered if this room would open for him, to leave them for her.  
  
The space wasn’t big enough to obscure what Nesta had hung on the far wall, but the sheer detail took a moment to resolve itself in Cassian’s eyes. A map twice as long as she was tall depicting their corner of the world: Prythian, the far islands, the continent, in loving, perfect aspect.  
  
A hundred colored pins grouped or linked with ribbon.  
  
Silent, Nesta watched him with hooded eyes as Cassian followed her steps to stand before the map, heart in his throat. Troops- so many more armies gathered than just Hybern, motions echoing to the far reaches of faerykind.  
  
“How many legions do you muster?”  
  
Mechanically, watching her pale hand straighten a long string she’d tied between the armies of the Great Desert, Cassian answered truthfully. “Four.” What was the point of lying to her? They were in this together, all in the same danger. “If war is declared, more than half the Steppes will fight- four thousand Illyrians.”  
  
Who Cassian would be responsible for. How many had he trained himself over the years? Cassian could hear the bone drums in his head, the battle cries that would echo from peak to peak when he made the call. To protect his court- to protect this land- Illyria would rise to burn the sky.  
  
Precisely, Nesta sank eight red pins into the blank northernmost corner of the map.  
  
Cassian counted them twice, heart rising to his throat as his eyes raced over the map again, approximating. Hybern, Hesperia, the Blooming Country, the Desert nomads, the Queen’s Countries, Shallavar, the distant Black Land- Cassian swore.  
  
“ _Nesta_ ,” Her eyebrows rose immediately, and he wouldn’t do her the insult of asking if the numbers were right. _Of course the numbers were right_ \- that was why he was here, why her beautiful face gave no quarter despite her impending collapse. “How do you know all this?”  
  
He could practically see her bristle- had to swallow the thought that she must be used to being _written off_ ; this painfully vital, clearly brilliant woman, _how stupid could mortal men be?_ \- and rein it in. Like exhaustion wore her sharp edges, like maybe, the ridiculous late night early morning hour softened her too, Nesta Archeron only huffed out a breath.  
  
“Bribery, mostly,” She sniffed, looking at the map and not him. “And news from the trade routes.”  
 _  
News_ \- the bowl she’d plucked up the pins from sat on the ruin of an old writing desk, every surface piled so high with paper and books the whole thing looked liable to buckle. While he watched, apparently done and satisfied with his answer, Nesta turned away and started sorting ribbon bound letters, adding to two towered piles.  
  
Cassian waited for the familiar sting of dismissal, but felt nothing but horrible, out of place _hope_ instead. She’d come looking for him, no matter that they’d been fighting, that Cassian was barely in control of himself every second he spent with her.  
 _  
Nesta had asked for his help.  
_  
It stilled the thrashing _thing_ in his chest, the flame swept feeling that had left his hands shaking when she’d gotten that last, barbed word. Not Lucien, not Azriel, Nesta had trusted at least enough that he’d tell her the truth.  
  
Something was _wrong_ with him. But Cassian wasn’t about to walk away. _  
  
“_ The black,” Cassian heard himself say, voice rough, “They’re hundreds?”  
  
Nesta’s head snapped up. Nothing given- but she answered, smooth as silk, simple as a shining blade. “Hundreds,” She confirmed, “Blue for two score, and”-  
  
“Red for twenty-five,” Cassian interrupted, biting his smile when her gaze shot to his face with a scowl.  
  
Feyre’s _sister_ \- not younger. Older and _angrier,_ cut vivid and sharp. Impossible.  
  
Not just because she wouldn’t play by the rules of Feyre and Rhys’ plans, because Cassian couldn’t settle in his own skin until he saw her face.  
 _  
Impossible.  
_  
But he wouldn’t treat her like they were on separate sides- it was _too wrong_ , wrong as her fear, the weariness that seemed to bleed from her pores- even if Rhysand wouldn’t like it, Cassian could do a damned lot more to help than give this woman the honor of telling her the truth.  
  
“We have spies, “ Cassian started carefully, hiding from her eyes by staring at the map, “In five of those countries. Azriel’s been trying to find the chain of command, where Hybern seeded their people into foreign military posts.“  
  
Silence.  
  
Cassian waited. If she threw him out, at least he’d given her something. At _least_ , the thought tangled, and he couldn’t help but imagine that if she threw him out, she’d _touch_ him. Nesta Archeron seemed extremely capable of reaching out and dragging an Illyrian by the wings, manners be damned.  
  
Gods only knew, he’d let her.  
  
The cool porcelain lip of a bowl brushed his arm. This time, Cassian couldn’t contain his smile. In equal silence, the feel of her gaze heavy on his face, Cassian sank green-tipped pins into the appropriate clusters, and passed it back.  
  
Green- for the briar and blood flag of Hybern- had she seen it? Banners the color of decay, that single drop of blood in the design so bright you could see it from the skies.  
  
Nesta Archeron, Cassian was nearly sure, did nothing by accident.  
  
Silence had been the right answer, for all that he was biting his lip to keep it as the moment spooled on and on. Four hundred years of learning patience- Cassian who could and had let a snowstorm bury him to hold a mountain, who’d chipped away at a hundred centuries of tradition his whole life, who’d lived fifty years without the freedom of the sky and stayed sane- all undone, with ease, without intention, by this one mortal woman.  
 _  
Impossible.  
  
“_Before we resumed trade, I contracted out all of our ships for cargo. More than a year ago, before the armies mustered, so that by now, the auxiliary would know and trust our sailors reliability.”  
  
Cassian turned it over, twice, to make sure he’d heard the full explanation she was offering correctly, before he met her blazing eyes. “Overland trade is too slow,” He breathed, watching her mouth quirk. A smile- gods, he knew he was grinning at her like a giddy child. “So they’re using your ships to transport their supplies?”  
  
Quicksilver, possibly Cassian’s imagination, Nesta smiled back.  
  
“And bribing the guilds and caravans for their numbers.”  
  
Roundabout, fiendishly clever, “You’re working backwards?” Tallying troops from their supplies, inherently capable of error, but still a better estimate than they had.  
  
Her face said _yes_ , said pride, something fierce that echoed back from beneath Cassian’s ribs.  
  
“So make yourself yourself useful,” Nesta purred, an _unadulterated_ heat sweeping his body at her dropped tone, the complete and total confidence. “Tally confirmed numbers.”  
  
Cassian took the pile of paper she shoved into his hands, and _laughed_.  
  
Five hours of fraught, electric quiet only broken by Cassian saying stupid things he couldn’t contain later, he retreated upstairs. _Tactically_. Not because with nothing else to do he was getting twitchy in her presence, Nesta’s dawn bright eyes snagging on the motion of his nervous hands- but because she was _tired_.  
  
An exhaustion so complete it colored the air like fog, her weary tension hitting every one of his instincts.  
  
Cassian wasn’t stupid enough- disrespectful enough- to try to make her stop.  
  
It wasn’t his place. _Wasn’t-_ it had never been clearer she wasn’t Feyre, someone whose youth and easy temper made it simple to look out for.  
  
There was nothing easy about Nesta Archeron, and Cassian couldn’t stay away.  
  
He could however, make tea.  
  
It took him just long enough, following his nose through the kitchen stores to find the variety she’d been drinking earlier, that Nesta seemed to have thought he’d left.  
  
Shed her coat, ripped the laced-on sleeves off her dress, and moved from her perch before the map to sit straight-backed atop the weapons table, the least formal he’d ever seen Nesta.  
  
Cassian’s foot missed the last step.  
  
Watching him with those predators eyes, leagues different from Cassian remembered any mortal, Nesta tilted her head at his approach. Instantly, helplessly, Cassian felt his neck heat. Sharp as a faery, dominant as an Illyrian, eyes like the damned horizon.  
  
She took the mug out of his hand like it was _nothing_.  
  
Black tea and violets, lavender on her lips. It should be nothing- Cassian was the only member of the inner circle with any domestic talents. He fed everyone, all the time.  
  
But for Cassian, _the Illyrian,_ watching the steady pulse of her throat, it was the first moment of calm since he’d scented a fire he couldn’t find.  
  
Wordless, swallowing against the dryness of his throat, Cassian held out the plate of cookies he was also carrying.  
  
She picked one up absently, eyes wandering back to the map. Took a single bite that did unspeakable things Cassian. And then, mystifyingly, _recoiled_ , setting it back on the plate.  
  
Humans couldn’t possibly feel the way about food High Fae did, Cassian tried to remind his racing pulse. He’d seen Lucien hand her things,seen Elain accept the pass off of platters from Az, _surely_ -  
  
“Don’t eat those,” Nesta instructed over his thoughts.  
  
Cassian had the half horrified, utterly embarrassed thought that he’d managed to bring her something that _wasn’t even actually a cookie_. He took a deep breath. Buttery almond, sugar, vanilla, _and_ \- Cassian picked up the cookie she’d bitten in half, eyeing the delicate crumbs.  
  
“Who are you planning on poisoning?” Cassian blurted.  
  
Ash- the Archerons had burnt faery killing ash wood and baked it into _shortbread_. Without her reaction, it would have slid right by him, almond burying the scent.  
  
She twisted to look at him.  
  
Even with the high table helping, they weren’t evenly face to face. Too close at breakfast, too angry in the garden; it was the nearest he’d ever been to her without it being an accident. Nesta didn’t move away.  
  
“Not poison,” She said, finally, “But enough to disable High Fae.”  
  
“For ten minutes,” Cassian replied, “Maybe twenty.”  
  
“ _Plenty of time_ ,” Nesta hissed.  
  
He couldn’t help it, Cassian _laughed_. Not at her- but at the sheer warlike delight she had. Mortal life and human skin, Nesta was Illyrian at heart, something savage and beautiful all the way through.  
  
He wondered if she were afraid of heights.  
  
Wondered if she hated him.  
  
“So how long before you’re done abetting the enemy?” It didn’t come out right, more accusation than joke, but Nesta only raised those damning brows at him.  
  
“Why should I stop?” Nesta asked, razor edges to her beautiful voice. “No one has declared war on my kind.”  
  
More awake, he might have accelerated right into anger her words. But softened by the night, by the glow of her pale skin in the place that was so clearly hers, nearly mad that she was even speaking to him-  
 _  
My kind_. Hate didn’t matter, not now, not pared with trust. What Cassian really wanted know: could Nesta ever look at him and not see _other?_ Shame wasn’t a part of him. Cassian had been born for the skies, could and would bleed for his warlike people.  
  
He was the wind of north, vengeance on swift wings, but he didn’t look anything like a human man.  
  
“Merchants are the only people who really win wars,” Cassian said, without any heat. “Will you run blockades?”  
  
The wrong thing- he could see it immediately, furious temper flashing across her face. “ _Or,_ ” Nesta’s voice sliced the air, echoing to his ears as the word dragged out. “I’ll wait until the fighting starts and starve the bastards when they need it most.”  
 _  
Vengeance_ \- maybe Nesta Archeron had a taste for it.  
  
Close, they were too close, Cassian breathed, “ _Good_.” He might have imagined it- hope and sleep deprivation heady, but her body seemed to sway to the sound, a hairsbreadth closer. It made him reckless, made him savage. “Poison the last shipment.”  
  
Better than a smile, respect flickered over the pale perfection of Nesta’s face. “What did you think the vault of faebane was for?”  
  
He’d clocked it, _wondered._ So very vicious; faebane ate at magic from the inside out. Cassian was old enough to remember humans during the last war being horrified by the brutality of fae fighting. Different rules bound them. Honor didn’t mean pageantry or parlance- it meant promises kept. Meant surviving, no matter the cost.  
  
Cassian would have done the same thing.  
  
Their eyes met and _held_. Not a joke or a brush off, steady blue. Nesta absolutely would poison scores of soldiers sent to conquer her land. _Insanely_ , he was thinking he would help her in an instant if she asked.  
  
They remained that way, Cassian pinned in place by her gaze for longer than he could count. Could have been an age, or a minute- Cassian tried to divine the skies of her eyes, Nesta allowed herself to look back, no air left to breathe that wasn’t wild fire, didn’t possess the cold clarity of frost.  
  
Until without warning, bringing the scent of fire that had never seen a mountain forest, Lucien winnowed to the foot of the stairs.  
  
“I have the,” Lucien said and paused, as though he’d begun speaking before he’d fully appeared, stopping himself at the sight of Cassian.  
  
Cassian, alone with Nesta _._  
  
A bloody sort of triumph, shocking him with its intensity, burst beneath Cassian’s ribs when Nesta didn’t falter. Remained in his space like it belonged to her, sipping tea as she met Luciens eyes from over the crest of one wing.  
  
He’d worn the fox mask in the Spring menagerie, according to Feyre. Clever, _dangerous_ , Autumn’s lost heir was an unknown element. Cassian couldn’t forget the infinitely implied intimacy of Nesta grumbling his name.  
  
Different then she said it now, silken. “ _Lucien_.”  
  
He grinned, flashing fangs. “ _Nes-ta_.”  
  
She bared her teeth right back before sliding off the table. Continuing the out of body- _out of his mind_ \- experience that was this night Cassian watched her liquid, storming steps across the room, furious grace not what his brain said was _human_.  
  
But Cassian had been fighting with mortal men last time he’d been in these lands- Nesta Archeron was no man.  
  
Like she leveled Cassian, snarled at _Rhysand,_ Nesta drew close to Lucien like he wasn’t High Fae at all. Casual. Natural.  
  
“Ready?”  
  
Lucien nodded at her, passing over a flat cedar box that Cassian was briefly possessed by the urge to carry for her to next table. Which was- which was _absolutely_ not happening.  
  
“One bloodline curse old as the bone forest,” Lucien went on, following Nesta as she carried the damn box- _as she was perfectly capable-_ to an empty corner next to the sword pile. Over her head, like he’d felt the force of Cassian’s gaze, Lucien caught his eyes. “Fell wind.”  
  
Cassian nodded back, “Seventh son.”  
  
Faery prick was a language he was also fluent in.  
  
Ignoring them both, Nesta pulled out a low bronze bowl and an old fashioned quill, before opening the box. Without the sharp encasement of cedar, the smell would have knocked Cassian flat. As it was, siphon song shuddered to life as Cassian found himself gripping the table.  
  
Blood.  
 _  
Nesta’s_ blood- copper and pain, a forest fires vitality reduced to cold ash.  
  
“ _What is that_?” He didn’t mean to ask, his words unmoored as they had been all night. Nesta didn’t react- _thank stars and skies and bleeding dawns-_ but Lucien Vanerra looked up again, and smirked.  
  
“A contract,” Nesta replied, pulling out the parchment. Cursed by Lucien, but written by the hand he could now recognize as hers in her own blood. “That your High Lord will not be able to break.”  
  
Cassian closed his eyes. He wanted to say, _Rhys will keep you safe_. He would- Cassian had believed that even before he’d decided he’d go down bloody himself to stop any harm from befalling this glorious, nightmare of woman.  
  
Because they were Feyre’s family. Were family now, full stop.  
  
But Cassian also understood the tough calls required to make a war run; this part of Prythian would be a charnel house in year’s time. _Protection_ would be the sisters in Velaris- not Nesta commanding her ships, not Elain doing whatever she intended with enough poison to kill an army of humans and Lucien Vanserra by her side.  
 _  
Safe_ would be on Feyre’s terms, and it would break Nesta.  
  
Rhys was going to be furious with him.  
  
On silent feet, wings rustling through the quiet, Cassian walked to Nestas’ other side. Didn’t baulk at the tiny, diamond-studded, precisely curved knife in her hand. Lucien let him get close, the temperature of the room rising.  
  
“Freely given,” Cassian recited.  
  
Surprise, real and unrestrained, broke across Lucien’s face. _Prick_ , Cassian thought. But all he really cared about was Nesta, her face gone faery sharp with interest.  
  
“Will it work?” The question clearly not for Cassian echoed, but Nesta’s gaze didn’t stray from his face.  
  
“Magic enjoys,” Lucien paused, drawn out, “Fidelity. Promises made and kept are just as personal as bleeding yourself, under the right circumstances.”  
  
Enough of an answer, Nesta offered the knife. Instead of taking it, because he was _insane,_ Cassian pushed up his sleeve and gave Nesta Archeron his sword arm to bleed as she wished.  
  
She knew where to cut. Gave him the honor of a neat wound.  
  
As purple-red of drying Illyrian blood joined the more earthen stain of hers, Cassian read over Nesta’s shoulder. It wasn’t the blood loss than made him numb as the sun rose, but a growing horror.

*** _  
_

Both Rhys and Azriel were in the room when Cassian managed to climb back up through the sun-drenched house, walls of snow against the windows making every space bright.  
  
In the middle of something, but Az still rustled one wing in Cassian’s direction, a silent _are you okay?  
_  
Cassian hummed an approximation back, tiredness heavy in his bones. Sure, he was okay. And _furious,_ but he hadn’t gotten to where he was in life without the ironclad ability to fight down anger, to not outright choke on unfairness.  
  
They both had.  
  
Pulling on more clothing and actual shoes that his panicked brain hadn’t accounted for in the middle of the night, Cassian tuned in to the conversation. Feyre wanted Mor here, Az would switch out with her to shore up the city defenses.  
  
On the tip of his tongue, bitter heat that had nothing to do with Morrigan who he’d be glad to see sat in the shape of words: had Feyre asked, or even mentioned to her sisters housing them someone else was coming?  
  
Another High Fae they’d be at risk for. _Another_ \- Cassian dragged a hand through his hair and breathed.  
  
He’d fought coming here already. Az on his side and Amren quizzically unopposed, but Rhys had listened to Feyre. With her simple explanation it had been a _risk_ \- trouble, a mistake- but not impossible. Between Cassian and Azriel, they could keep two mortal girls safe, even from Hybern.  
  
They’d been wrong.  
  
Two women, and Lucien Vanserra besides, not an idle player in any of this, who they were _irreversibly_ screwing over. Cassian would have been angry if it was anyone, but the Archerons were family and Nesta _was_ \- Nesta.  
  
Maybe he’d thought it too loud, screamed her name even through mental wards, because Rhys was staring at him.  
  
Cassian summoned half a smile at the severity on his face. But in clear warning knell before Rhysand even spoke, Az’s attention snapped to his High Lord with an icy clarity.  
  
“I don’t have to ask you,” Rhys said in that voice like this was joke between brothers, like he was going to reach out and ruffle Cassian’s hair before they threw down in the mud like children, “Not to sleep with Feyre’s sisters, do I?”  
  
Cassian froze.  
  
Quieter than a breath, sharp and clear beyond the muffled haze of the rest of Rhysand’s words, siphons sang to life, red death in the still air.  
  
“-think if would really upset Feyre. Vanserra is bad enough already.” He was still _talking_ , eyeing Cassian like this was casual. The proceeding shape of Nesta’s name on Rhys’s lips was enough to unlock his joints, to send a rush of fury to drown out all sense of the world.  
  
“A _fling_ , Cas”-  
  
Cassian punched him.  
  
Fluid and faster than even faery eyes could track- one minute sitting, the next crashing a fist into his brothers face hard enough bone splintered.  
  
Not Cassians hand, he knew _damn well_ what he was doing. Rhysand’s jaw, when he was caught too off guard to roll with the hit, to do anything but _snarl.  
_  
Gentle as a shadow, immovable as a wall, Az winnowed between them to grab Rhys by the shirt. “ _Rhys_. You do not want to-“  
  
“What the _hell_ , Cassian?”  
  
He didn’t have words yet. Too busy fighting the blood red haze behind his eyes, the every instinct in his body that said: _rend._ The need to defend Nesta, even the _suggestion,_ was all consuming; a violent heat shaking every bit of him apart.  
  
Rhysand was being a jackass, but that didn’t normally mean Cassian wanted to break _every bone in his body.  
_  
Az strong-armed Rhys out of the room before Cassian got a hold of himself.  
  
He didn’t lose control. Didn’t lose himself to the keening violence that was his blessing and curse from birth- Cassian was better than that. Had to be, how else could he have ever survived long enough to wield more siphons than any Illyrian in history but for Az?  
  
He didn’t loose control; which made this _terrifying_.  
  
Slowly, Cassian came down with a cold, scarred hand pressed to his forehead. The shadows said _breathe_ , and Cassian listened, fighting adrenaline until the rise and fall of his chest matched Azriel in front of him.  
  
“He’ll be apologizing in six hours,” Az promised, voice low.  
  
Cassian almost smiled from sheer familiarity. A fight every few decades was normal with Rhys, but this was different. Az, who could hear the air and siphon song that rang with violence, _defend, protect, destroy_ , knew it too. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.”  
 _  
“Cas_.” _  
  
“_ I wanted to,” Cassian shook his head, unsteady. Azriel just moved his hand from his face to his shoulder, grounding. “I don’t know”-  
  
“ _Cassian_ ,” Az sighed, infinite patience and terrible quiet, “You know.”  
  
Huffing a laugh without humor, Cassian rubbed a hand over his face. “I made her tea, Az. We’re about to fight against armies who outnumber us by thousands and the only time I’ve felt sane since crossing the Wall was watching her take a cup out of _my_ hands. It's”-  
  
“Like falling.” Az agreed, knowing black eyes holding an untapped future. “Realizing the wings that’ll save you from crashing aren’t attached to your body.”  
  
It was a relief to admit. Unbearable to try to put into words- Cassian was in _such_ deep shit.  
  
Like he’d plucked the thought out of his head, out of the air- maybe he had, Az grinned suddenly. The face that said _trouble_ was not one most people got to see, though Cassian had always had interesting luck.  
  
“ _Such_ unrelenting shit,” Azriel promised, squeezing Cassian’s shoulder in a death grip before retreating. “You’ve never liked easy.”  
  
Easy would have seen him dead in the cold ground before his fifth year.  
  
“She’s a _fire,_ ” Cassian didn’t want to imagine how he looked, the raw tone of his voice too much to his own ears. “She’s going to burn the world in this war.”  
  
Feyre might have seen herself as a protector of both her other sisters, but Cassian was certain of if only one thing about Nesta. She would not go quietly into the safety of the night. Rage and keep raging, foment chaos and continue making terrifyingly shrewd calls to protect mortal lives.  
  
Nesta Archeron would go down fighting to protect her people, and Cassian couldn’t say he was any different.


End file.
